Birds in Nature - images of wild birds by Richard Ditch

Subject: Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)
Place: Superior, AZ, USA
Date: June 2003
Equipment: Nikon N90S, Nikkor AF-S 300/2.8 & TC20E (= 600/5.6), tripod
Film: Fujichrome Sensia 100
Exposure: Aperture priority matrix metered
Scan: Minolta Dimage, 60% of frame

Commentary: Turkey Vultures like to warm up their wings before setting off for a day of soaring, and they can sometimes be found doing this on a distant ridge top or large snag. This was the first time I've been able to get any sort of image of them doing so.

This image didn't compress very well into the jpeg format. It requires a very low quality setting to get under 100 KB, and even allowing the file size to reach 125 KB as here it still shows a lot of compression artifacts around the head. This is a compromise between size and quality, and I'm not really happy with either.