Sometimes in nature serendipity happens. I was in Brazil at a huge sinkhole photographing macaws coming and going when this buff-necked ibis landed on a tree branch about 20 feet from me. The lighting was perfect, the background was ideal, and the only thing I needed was for the ibis to turn its head so that long beak was parallel with the back of my camera, i.e. the plane of the digital sensor. That would guarantee I've enough depth of field for the beak and the head to be sharp. Had the bird been looking at the camera, it would appear as if there were a large out of focus blob on the face. That would have ruined the image. Only for a short moment did the ibis cooperate, and I grabbed the shot. My settings were 1/1600, f/14, and 1250 ISO. My lens combination was a 100-500mm Canon zoom along with a 1.4x teleconverter.
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