Roseate Tern Fracas

[Melissa Groo]

Canon 1D Mark IV
500mm +1.4x
Skimmer pod

ISO 800
f/7.1
1/4000 sec

I took this last June during the wonderful workshop Gail and I both took with Mike Milicia's Shoot the Light Workshop--Least Terns and Piping Plovers. At a beach in northern MA. These are Roseate Terns, so named because their undersides take on a pinkish hue during breeding season; if you look closely you can see the hue on these two. We found them among a group of common terns and were able to capture them mating a couple of times. Here one is feeling peckish towards the other. The cliche answer would be that it's the female who's grown tired of being mounted and is snappishly telling the male to bug off, but who knows what the story really is. At any rate, I was thrilled to see them, as it was my first time ever seeing Roseates. They are both banded and I did not want to clone the bands out as I think it tells the story of these terns and how rare they are--this species is endangered along the Atlantic coast. I think they are absolutely beautiful and elegant. Note the length of the tail.
Some crop, taming of the whites, sharpening.
Comments and critiques much appreciated. I hope you like it.

[David Salem]

Very cool interaction shot Melissa. These are very striking and I have never seen them before, love the solid black cap. Both of them voicing their objections is neat and adds to the scene. The BG transitions into the sand nicely and the techs look great. Nice work

[PhilCook]

I disagree with you interpretation of why they are squabbling, I can see the problem here, one of the birds has two bangles and the other one is jealous= jewelry lust.

Nice timing Melissa, a little soft but the action is great, well done and congrats on getting shots of this species

[Nick Palmieri]

Nice action. It looks like you are losing some details in the whites...possibly a little soft??? Great story telling image.

[Melissa Groo]

Thanks you all. I went in and tried to pull out some more detail using Detail Extraction in Color Efex. Also did some more sharpening. Hope it's improved in that respect.

[Marina Scarr]

Love the interaction, the action and the accompanying story. Glad you left the bands. The focus appears to be on the rear tern and the front tern is somewhat soft. The underwing looks a little better in the repost, but the head looks oversharpened. Both birds don't have to be in focus to tell the story. It would have been helpful to give up some speed for more DOF in the case of interaction between more than one bird. Murphy's Law dictates that two birds are rarely on the same plane.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Melissa, good interaction between the two, and I like how three of the four feet are off the ground. Your low shooting angle has turned out well, and agree the focus seems to be on the rear bird. The repost has turned out better.

[Diane Miller]

Image tells a great story -- whatever it is.... The focal point and DOF are good enough to tell it for me. Good catch!

[Robert Holguin]

Wonderful shot.
Excellent timing and interaction captured.
I really like the low shooting angle and the great background.
Front bird seems a tad soft, but it's still a great shot.

[PhilCook]

Repost has made this a notch better...V cool !

[gail bisson]

Hi Melissa,
That was quite exciting to see these beauties!
The repost addresses the sharpness issue a lot but still not perfect. Aren't I a picky you- know- what!!
I like the interaction and the feet off the ground.
No one has mentioned this but I wish the tail didn't intersect the rear bird.
Gail

[Melissa Groo]

Thanks a heap for all the helpful feedback. I think Marina is right, I should have traded SS for more depth of field.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Great interaction Melissa. I love how the girls play hard to get, its fun to watch. Repost is nice I would pick sharpening in between the two posts.

[Shawn Zierman]

Action: Very good. Would prefer focus to have locked onto the bird in front, but still a great interaction image.
Shooting angle: Perfect.
Questions: I have never seen Roseate Terns, so I'm a newb in that regard. Why does the bird in front have an
all black bill, and the bird in back have a bicolored bill? Male vs female? Age difference? Just wondering....

[Melissa Groo]

Shawn, great catch. Thank you for inspiring me to go back into my pictures and look through many of them to figure that out once and for all. When I initially worked on the image, I assumed it was a Roseate as in certain angles you could really see the red of the interior of their mouths. And the tail looked long. I also was surmising that due to the leg banding, as I had looked through a number of my pics from that day and had not seen banding on any of the Commons. This time I looked through each and every one of my pics, and finally found one of a Common Tern that was banded, on the right leg only, and I think that that's what the story is here. Which of course throws a whole new light on the interaction. See the pic I attached.
It's a good lesson and caution on how, when in doubt, it's easy to make the details fit the story we think is being told!
Thanks for raising the question!

[Karl Egressy]

Great interaction image, Melissa. The repost is big improvement in terms of sharpness and details.

[Frank Schauf]

Very nice scene and great details and sharpness.