There is a lot to keep in mind when you are photographing any moving subject, especially wildlife. Your choice of subject, background, composition and most importantly the light. And then there is the waiting for the moment of action and a pose which creates interest. But even with all that in place little things can keep you from getting a great photo…

This Golden-fronted Woodpecker was one we photographed several times on our recent photo safari to the Rio Grande Valley. It had a granary tree right in front of one of our blinds so just about every participant had the opportunity to make some great images as it flew back and forth with seeds.

This first image shows the bird perched in an almost ideal way—facing slightly towards the camera with a dark background created by the tree hollow and positioned between two branches of the tree with its claws visible. The image is tack sharp and there is a catchlight in the eye. What’s not to like?

But one thing keeps it from being a great image. Can you tell what it is?

The small shadow of a branch on the bird’s head. Sure it is natural, and sure you could probably fix it in Photoshop, but if you’re aware of it at the time and are patient you can wait and watch for the bird to perch just a touch lower and get this image which is greatly improved by not having the shadow.

Of course you might also have noticed that the image with the shadow has a slightly more attractive head position, making the bird look more alive. A little more patience and we can get an image with both:

Now we have a really nice image of a Woodpecker. Uncropped like the one above it shows the bird in its environment with some greenery. But by adding a teleconverter (or in this case by moving the blind forward slightly or cropping slightly since I already had a 1.4x teleconverter on my 1.4 to get the images you’ve seen) we can create more of a close-up portrait like the one below which also gets rid of the distracting branches on the right.

So next time you’re out wondering why you take so many images of the same animal or the same scene make sure you’re using the opportunity to sweat the details and make sure that each one can be better than the last.