Iridescent Senegal feathers

[JimH]

The photo I use as an avatar is not recolored in any way except that I blacked out the background. I took a flash photo of Bishop in the evening and was surprised to find he showed up yellow! I knew Bishop's feathers looked vaguely iridescent, but I never expected him to look like that. Has anybody else here ever taken a flash photo of their Senegal in low light? I'd love to see other glowing Senegals!

[Pajarita]

Green feathers are made with yellow pigment and a special conformation of the feather itself that reflects blue light (blue + yellow = green) which changes when you use certain types of light.

[mrbowlerhat]

I have to say, I don't think this has anything to do with iridescence, but rather overexposure and a harsh camera flash. Kind of like when you take a photo of brownish black hair with a flash, and the hair turns out orange/yellow.


With that said, Miley's grey head feathers do have a beautiful shimmer of emerald green to them in sunlight, it's very pretty!

[JimH]

Interesting info Pajarita and fair point, mrbowlerhat. Looking at Bishop's face in the photo the flash doesn't appear to be too harsh, but just out of curiosity I'm going to try it again with a more muted flash.

Pajarita, from reading various posts here, I can see you are exceptionally well informed about birds. How long have you been doing rescue? Are you a breeder as well?