Avocet Antics

Gallery: AvianPosted July 24, 2012195 views6 comments

7-21-12 at San Joaquin Wildlife Preserve, Irvine, CA

D800 Nikkor 200-400mm lens f/10 1/1000 ISO500 White Balance Auto
JPEG Manual 360mm
Two other NPN members and I were shooting mid day at the third pond from the parking lot. Despite there being significant areas unoccupied by birds, the Avocet in the photo staked out this area of the pond as his own. The GBH was just minding his own business, and for nearly an hour, the Avocet periodically attacked, (flew at the GBH just missing him), and the GBH squawked loudly and got fairly aggressive defending himself. Eventually he got tired of being hassled and flew to another part of the pond where he was chased away by another GBH. I think there must have been something in the water because a Black Necked Stilt was attacking one stilt among several for most of the afternoon. Significantly cropped and adjusted with CS6 and NIK. Comments welcome.

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Rick Turner on July 24, 2012 at 11:17 PM

Sweet moment of capture.

Registered on February 18, 2012, 534 Posts, 2755 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on July 24, 2012 at 11:57 PM

Nice capture of the interaction of the two different birds. Whites on the avocet seem a bit washed out. Thanks for sharing and the story behind the photo.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on July 25, 2012 at 12:16 AM

An interesting interaction, but image quality is rather poor from the crop, contrast, and sharpening.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on July 25, 2012 at 10:32 AM

I agree with Richard. I suggest trying RAW. The D800 is a phenomenal machine and begs for the best processing. I would also be tempted to take a second look at this, which is a quite good action shot. and see if I could bring out some more detail. I don't know what "significant" crop means, but the D800 with that lens should hold detail down to about a 30-40% crop of full frame.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Haffley on July 26, 2012 at 10:03 AM

I agree with the other comments. The processing is much better if you start with a raw image. I love the action.

Registered on August 10, 2008, 265 Posts, 317 Comments

Comment posted by Howard Cheek on July 26, 2012 at 7:46 PM

Held up well in spite of the large crop, love the "attack" action I see Patrick.
Thanks for the notes on this, nice job of documenting this very interesting behavior!

Registered on July 24, 2008, 1201 Posts, 10758 Comments