Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Marbled godwit at Pillar Point

Marbled godwit at Pillar Point (2of2)

In one of the shorebird ID books I have, they describe the marbled godwit as being the subject of many close encounters for beachcombers on western beaches, and I've found that to hold fairly true. In general, these guys seem less bothered than many other species to have people around, and this one was no exception. Every now and then it would give me a glance to ensure I wasn't doing anything fishy -- but it was mostly focused on finding breakfast.

Probing for breakfast (1of2)

In these shots, I liked that you could see the 'tongues' of all of the clams buried in the sand. Although, I had to wonder if that helped to give their position away to the many birds searching for them.

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful captures and poses. Fantastic clarity and I love how you got a shot of their feeding habits. Was there fill flash to help with the awful overcast color that day? Awesome. I need to get out myself. Its been too long since I have gotten anything decent.

    P.s. what's your longest focal length?

    -All the best

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  2. Thanks, Jarred. No fill flash here -- the bonus to shooting on a beach is that the sand reflects a lot of light and helps to fill in shadows. And I'm using a Tamron 200-500 right now, so I max out at 500mm (but on a DX camera, so a 750mm equivalent).

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