Upon returning to the start of a mountain hike shortly after sunset, a deep hooting sound could be heard. Right next to the road, a male Dusky Grouse was in full display mode, strutting his stuff out in the open! I lay down in some tall grass, hidden behind some bushes, and captured this image as the grouse faced towards me, displaying. It was getting very dark and I had no time to retrieve and set up my tripod, so I had to use a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/25 of a second, and handhold the camera as still as possible. I was thrilled to capture some sharp images, despite the difficult conditions. A background of some spruce trees in the deep shadows made for a studio-like black background effect behind the spectacular bird.
