Long-billed Curlew juvie

Numenius americanus

This is somewhat of a continuation of my last post of an adult Long-billed Curlew which was taken on July 1st. Ron and I went back to the same location on July 3rd and spotted an adult curlew perched on the same boulder where we had photographed the curlew two days before. On the right side of the dirt road we could see some juveniles foraging in the high grasses which would have been facing the sun. We were photographing the adult on the boulder hoping that the juveniles would cross the dirt road and get on our side in good light. They started to do that but we weren't quite able to photograph them because of the angle of the windows in the pick up.

I caught some movement out of my left eye and looked away from the viewfinder to see what it was. I had this juvenile Long-billed Curlew looking right back at me. I was whispering trying to get Ron's attention without flushing the bird and trying to zoom back to 200mm at the same time and I still could not get the whole bird into the frame. I quickly zoomed back out after deciding the only thing I could do was take head shots.

It really felt like an honor to have this fledgling curlew approach us like it did. We got a few shots and then the bird moved off towards the adult but into the high grasses. Before this July I had never seen a Long-billed Curlew at that age before, so it was a real treat.

The little black specks are biting gnats (no-see-ums) that for weeks bit us each time we went out shooting. Nasty blood-suckers! I opted to not clone them out but could very easily.

Nikon D200, f6.3, 1/1250, ISO 400, +0.7 EV, 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, 65% of the original frame, natural light.

As always I sincerely appreciate your comments & critiques. Thanks for looking.