Category: Shore Birds

Black-necked Stilt Stretching and Preening

The Black-necked Stilt is an elegant study in contrasts with its white breast and shiny black wings accentuated by extremely long, bright red legs.  They’re often found feeding near American Avocets and I’ve routinely been able to get preening and stretching images of avocets but the stilts have been less cooperative with me.  Typically they’ll actively feed when I’m near but they always seem to fly off to do their self-maintenance.    1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc However, this bird apparently decided that flying off was too much effort and it unexpectedly began a series of stretches.      1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc I was able to photograph a variety of interesting poses but by this time the sun was relatively high and so some of the best shots are missing light in the eye.   Stilts often pull their leg up over the wing when scratching the head.      1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Because these birds are usually wading in water when I’m photographing them the extreme length of their legs is not always evident but catch one in a pose like this and it becomes quite apparent.      1/3200, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  I like the water splash and pose in this shot.     1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  Here the stilt has finished stretching for the moment and is contemplating its next move…      1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc  which turned…

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The Timelessness of a Buffalo Chip Perch

The American Bison is a relative newcomer to North America, having migrated from Eurasia over the Bering Straight about 10,000 years ago.  As is common knowledge they once roamed in massive herds across most of the continent until commercial hunting and slaughter reduced their numbers to a few hundred by the end of the 19th century.    1/500, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Today a herd of approximately 500 animals roams free on Antelope Island and that many large animals produce a lot of poop – commonly referred to as “buffalo chips”.  Those chips are all over the island – like small dark islands in a sea of prairie grasses and tiny flowers and they’re tempting perches for a variety of bird species like Horned Larks and Meadowlarks.  But this past week I was able to catch some larger birds using them as perches.      1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc In the spring some of the shorebirds and wading birds come up from the shore of the Great Salt Lake to higher ground on the island for their breeding activities – Long-billed Curlews among them.  It seems that the added height of only a couple of inches provided by the chip is enough to significantly improve their view of the landscape for potential predators and also to help them keep an eye on other curlews in the area – there’s a lot of fighting and mating activities going on this time of year. To some viewers such a perch may have no aesthetic draw but I’m…

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Just A Shot That I Like… #12, American Avocet Ballet

Occasionally an image still appeals to me despite significant imperfections.  In this shot the cluttered background is not ideal nor are the specular highlights on the leg of the male’s reflection but I quite like the positions of both birds, their reflections and the good separation between the avocets and the reflections.       1/1250, f/10, ISO 400, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc Fighting avocets are very difficult to photograph because typically several male combatants are separated from each other by some distance and you never know which bird is going to go after another one next and when the action begins it is blindingly fast.  There’s also the problem of getting enough shutter speed and depth of field for multiple birds in action.  Shooting these birds fighting is nearly always a “poke and hope” situation. Setting the scene:  I had been photographing four males fighting over a single female (sexes easily identifiable because the female has a shorter and more strongly recurved bill than does the male) when this male lifted off and attacked two other males just out of frame to the right.   I just happened to catch the male in a good position over the female with reflections I liked.  One of the things that made this shot work is that I had enough light to use f/10 for sufficient depth of field and still get a fast enough (just barely) shutter speed to get both birds relatively sharp.  Ron 

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American Avocet Mating Displays

I’ve been fascinated by the mating displays of American Avocets ever since I first started photographing them almost five years ago.  This innate and complex choreography is almost identical in different mated pairs and from year to year.  The action happens quickly and is difficult to photograph well but I think I have enough decent images now to make an informative post about it.   Not all of the photos are of the highest quality but I think each of them illustrates the behavior well.   I’ll present several sequences of different birds that will illustrate most of the important stages of the process. I’m not going to include my techs with these shots -some of them were taken when I first started photographing birds and I made many mistakes in my setting choices.  Knowing some of these settings wouldn’t help anyone.   Avocets are monogamous and pairs form up in the spring when the female persistently associates with the male until she is eventually tolerated, then accepted as a mate.  The female initiates copulation by the posture you see above.  It’s called Solicitation Posture and in it she holds her neck extended far out and low.  At times it’s so low that much of the head, bill and neck are under water as you’ll see in a later image.      Once interested, the male performs Sexual Preening where he stands close to the female and extends his neck so that his bill tip can preen his breast (always on the side closest to her).   You’ll see that part of Sexual Preening in a later image but…

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Avocets and Phalaropes in a Hailstorm

Recently I’ve been tardy in posting on this blog because Mia and I just recently returned from one of our favorite camping/photo destinations – four days at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.  This trip was a memorable one (as they always are at RRL).      Canon 40D, 1/200, f/16, ISO 500 @35mm, ev 0.0 5:30 pm.  We were photographing American Avocets and Wilson’s Phalaropes on one of the refuge ponds when we looked behind us to the west and saw this impressive storm heading our way.  It was really dumping on the foothills surrounding the valley and we figured things might get interesting so we decided to stay at the pond and see what happened.  Good thing we were shooting from my pickup or we’d have been in trouble…     Canon 40D, 1/250, f/16, ISO 500 @17mm, ev +0.33 5:52 pm.  The slow-moving storm took a while to get to us but when it did it was impressive.  It began to rain very hard.  It was so intense that neither of us could keep water off of our lenses – in spite of the 7″ long hood on the end of my 500mm lens.   I love my new Ford F-150 pickup but the engineers did a poor job on the roof rain channels and water simply poured in off the roof whenever a window was down.  As you can see in my side mirror, Mia (who shoots from the back seat) has taken a temporary respite from the downpour and has her lens pulled in and her window…

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