A Coordinated Attack

In past posts I have shown pictures of mergansers and cormorants fishing in cooperation with one another to herd fish and increase their chance of eating a meal. This photo of Snowy Egrets appears to show a similar scenario, but in reality, it is not the same thing. Yes, they are fishing together, but they are not fishing in cooperation with each other. If one egret happens to spook a fish toward another, it is just happenstance.  They may be wading together but after watching them for a long time I can safely say they are not fishing together.

Get Low (With Apologies to Robert Duvall)

All herons and egrets use similar fishing techniques, but the smaller herons such as this Snowy Egret will use this method more commonly than the larger birds. That is probably because the smaller birds having shorter legs are closer to the water. 

Notice the angle of surface of the eye in this photo and the last - a good example of something I have noticed but have never had confirmed by reading about it. I am pretty sure through simply observing them over a long period that herons have the ability to turn their eyeball so that instead of looking straight out to the side (which would be monocular vision), they can angle them forward allowing them to look down their bill and out in front of them (which would be more like binocular vision). If you study this photo, you can tell the snowy is looking at the spot more or less in the middle of the water ring.

You would think the fish could see the bird as well as the bird can see the fish - and maybe they can - but just don't realize they are a predator. The snowies move as though they are in slow motion when they fish like this. Because their legs are just long enough to keep them above the water level it makes it easier for them to get low.

Once the fish become aware of the presence of a predator, they become a little freaked out as in this photo where, just by chance, I caught one jumping out of the water. If the snowies see you as non-threatening, you can get pretty close. It requires going to a spot, standing fairly quiet, and letting them eventually come to you. They have come as close as about fifteen feet from where I was standing - pretty close in a wide open area where they are free to go wherever they want.

Dancing with the Stars

I saw a scaup cleaning itself in the same manner last year, flipping almost completely over on it's back and preening it's belly. It is the only duck species I have seen do it in quite this way. I saw this one doing the same thing the other day.

I wasn't too happy with where the duck was located in regard to my position. I was having to shoot directly into the sun and there was a lot of light dancing and glancing off the water creating a nightmare for exposure.

So, I decided to embrace it and do the best I could. Turns out, the glints of light add a lot of interest to the photos.

Look at the size of that hoof! Being a diving duck, they have to be well equipped for getting around underwater.

To maintain it's posture, the scaup has to keep kicking the foot that is underwater, which causes it to spin around in circles

A little scratching of the "ears," something all ducks do. Actually, I'm not sure where their ears are.

I usually shoot with the lens as wide open as I can get it because most of the time I need all the light I can get - and then some.  But when you are shooting into the sun, I had to close down the lens and use a much smaller aperture, which lets in less light.  When you have your lens wide open, you get these nice round spots of light (referred to as "bokeh" after the Japanese term for the effect) which can enhance a photo. When the lens is closed down, the same spots become stars which can be distracting. Maybe it is because I don't see them in my photos very often, but I like the effect in these images.

Look at the water dripping off it's bill. You wonder how ducks could be wet so much of the time and still be warm in the winter.

Another Trick from the Bag

It was broad daylight. So how did I get this photo with the subject lit while everything else is dark? For this to work, there has to be a wide range of light (high amount of contrast) between the shadows and the highlights. The trick is to meter the brightest spot, which in this case was the seagulls neck, and then use a very fast shutter speed. This causes only the brightest areas to be recorded and the rest to fall into shadows, in this case not much more than the bird and the water ripples. The shutter speed for this photo was 1/6000 sec. which is very fast. Now, if I could just remember to use this technique more often...

Facing the Music

I think this photo defies the norm. Most of the time, you would want the animal turned in the opposite direction so that you can see it's face. But, this shot of a red fox carefully surveying the meadow before it crosses over effectively conveys a story - even without the face showing. The high degree of background blur causes your attention to immediately go to the fox and it's plush coat where it belongs. Actually, it wasn't a meadow.  The fox is standing on a little strip of woods between my house and the neighbor's lawn. Irregardless, it was still very cautious about crossing the lawn until it checked out the surroundings.

Ground Crew

Ever wonder how ducks can land and take off without having accidents? Now you know. "You are cleared for take-off on runway zero one niner..."

Bird Activity

I should have probably titled this "Bird Inactivity." If you see a Great Blue Heron standing like this, walk away. Don't stand there watching, thinking that any minute now, it will do something. It won't. And it might stand like this for hours. I know. I have waited, bent over a ready camera, eternity passing with every tick of the clock, waiting for something to happen. And all I had to show for it was a back ache.

They may or may not be sleeping. It is sometimes hard to tell. They may start preening and spend hours doing that. But you are wasting your time if you expect them to do something. They won't.

I assumed from the outset of taking bird pictures that every bird probably had a tell - some little indication that they were about to fly. Do they squat down so they can jump into the air? Do they spread their wings as they get ready to drop down off a branch? Turns out, I can name only one bird that I know of that has one and that is the Canada Goose. They almost always start honking before they fly.  But that is it. I have watched a lot of bird species, specifically looking for a sign that they were going to fly or dive or the like. In most cases they just don't exhibit any indication they are getting ready to do something.