This image has some obvious technical issues (bright whites, slight softness and nictitating membrane partially closed) so I thought I'd post it here since I thought the behavior, though fairly common, isn't often photographed in mid-air (in my experience anyway).
This tern had made an unsuccessful dive for a fish and was perhaps 10-15 feet above the water when it shook off its water load. It was so quick that I somehow didn't notice it happening when I photographed it and was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded my shots from this morning. I thought the image/behavior was interesting enough to share.
Wow, very interesting indeed. Although this isn't a critique forum I'd have to say the positives of this image greatly outweigh any negatives you mentioned and I would love to have taken it myself.
Posted by Brian Gatlin on May 21, 2010 at 10:59 PM
very cool shot, Ron. thanks for sharing it.
Posted by David Sparks on May 22, 2010 at 12:18 AM
Ron:
Neat capture of a very interesting behavior. In addition to shaking off water load, I think terns and gulls may assume some strange in flight postures while grooming. This is an example that I call "texting while flying". I did not notice this when photographing it either.
Discussion
5 repliesThis tern had made an unsuccessful dive for a fish and was perhaps 10-15 feet above the water when it shook off its water load. It was so quick that I somehow didn't notice it happening when I photographed it and was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded my shots from this morning. I thought the image/behavior was interesting enough to share.
Neat capture of a very interesting behavior. In addition to shaking off water load, I think terns and gulls may assume some strange in flight postures while grooming. This is an example that I call "texting while flying". I did not notice this when photographing it either.