Snowy Plover

Charadrius alexandrius

Sorry that I wasn't commenting towards the end of last week, Ron Dudley and I were busy preparing for a presentation at a local Nature Center on the basics of bird photography. The presentation went very well but after 3 1/2 hours of talking I almost lost my voice. Ron's voice held up much better.

This photo was taken in the month of February on Florida's Gulf coast. The Snowy Plover was very cooperative, it may have been more cooperative than normal because the morning was chilly. I did some sand crawling to get closer for more frame filling shots after this was taken but many of those images didn't have water in the background and I rather enjoy this image because of the Gulf behind the bird.

I cropped this to pano to retain the whole length of the shadow of the plover, this is about a 50% crop. D200, laying in the sand, handheld, f6.3, 1/1250, ISO 250, 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural light. Larger version provided.

There was a specular hightlight in the original file to the right of the bird's bill that I felt might be distracting so I cloned it out.

As always, I sincerely appreciate your comments & critiques. Thank you for taking the time to evaluate this image.