Garganey (Male)

A bird I'd never seen until yesterday! Here on Guernsey we only at best get to see a small number per year so I was pleased to be able to get an ok shot of it yesterday. For much of the day it was sheltering in the reeds out of reach from the lenses pointing in its direction. I decided to hang around for much of the afternoon and luckily he decided to wander out into my view for a few minutes before flying off. This was taken from a hide which is in an awkward place light wise, the sun was virtually right in front of me and of course my flash was sitting as it usually does back in the car. Anyway suprisingly this shot needed little work; levels, a touch of shadow/highlight, noise ninja and USM.

500mm f/4L IS with 2x TC and 1D MkII N. ISO 400, 1/250 sec. at f/8, - 1 1/1EC. Bean bag.

Thanks.

you did well with the conditions, good shot

A difficult bird at the best of times,We have a couple here on lake Geneva and i too managed to get a shot yesterday-Looks like you have done well in the conditions

Nice shot of the bird. Is that the true colour of the flank of the bird?
John
Aberdeen

John, that's pretty much how I remember the Garganey looking, All I did was to convert the RAW in ACR and adjust the levels plus some shadow/highlight. Here's another shot of the same bird going in the other direction, as you can see the sun had dissapeared by the second shot.

Thanks all for your comments.

Paul,

I have never seen on of these in breeding plumage, what a fantastic bird.

You've done well to get such a low view point.

Rob

Never seen one of these. Good effort indeed

Nicely done under what appear to be less than ideal conditions, that plumage does look interesting...