Shake It Till You Brk It

Gallery: AvianPosted July 26, 2017123 views5 comments

"Shake It Till You Break It" (hate that limited title block wink

)

The pair of Trumpeter Swans that "own" the pond down the road from my home decided to put on a show, just for me last Sunday. It was a bright, sunny morning and I stopped by to see if there was any activity. They were bathing and preening and basically prepping their brand new, bright white feathers for full flight service. They made a few high speed taxi runs (settling back down just before achieving full flight) and did a lot of flapping and splashing. I got bunches of high speed sequences and some good videos before maxing out a 64GB memory card. About the time I ran out of memory they went back to lazy preening and bottom feeding. I randomly picked a few frames to process for posting here (so many choices!)

In this one, the swan had just dipped to wet it's whole body and was shaking the water off. I liked it because of the disarray of the feathers and the flying water. View large for more detail!

Sony a6500, FE 70-200 f2.8 GM w/1.4X TC @ 277mm, ISO-100, f/6.3, 1/4000, hand held.

Comments

5 comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on July 26, 2017 at 7:36 PM

The large image is the only way to see this large bird take care of business. That is one powerful bird!

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

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 26, 2017 at 11:06 PM

That must have been a sunny morning to get 1/4000 at iso 100, Gary. I really like the frozen action and water. The dark bg makes both the swan and the water drops pop. If the image holds up to it, it might be interesting to crop this one tighter to really emphasize the action and the spray.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on July 28, 2017 at 3:00 PM

A fine action shot in harsh light. I like the splash.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Barbara Graham on July 28, 2017 at 4:07 PM

The larger image is so beautiful. I love this for the same reasons you do, the disarray of the feathers (I have a weakness for that) and the flying water.

Registered on July 27, 2010, 1310 Posts, 5035 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on July 29, 2017 at 6:54 PM

I almost always enjoy bathing shots of birds and this is no exception Gary, nicely captured, my only suggestion would possibly be trying to get a lower angle to get more separation from the background. devil

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments