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Marina Scarr
05-21-2015, 07:49 AM
Here's a series of images of a Swallow-tailed Kite pair during nesting season. After the pair mates, the female always waits on the perch for her "goodie." Here the male is trying to hand off her off a frog. He failed on each of his 3 passes/attempts and, in my next series, I"ll demonstrate how he finally succeeded in making his "payment in full." :bg3:

I don't have many series to share here b/c I rarely process more than one image from a series. My second frame is my favorite and what I would consider the best of this series. I'll try to think of this forum in the future when processing. It's fun to see the behavior and/or action play out in a series.

Canon 1D4, Canon 500 & 2.0 TC @ 1000mm
F10, 1/800sec, ISO 640, manual mode
Feisol tripod, Jobu head

Gabriela Plesea
05-21-2015, 12:23 PM
Dearest Marina!

Warmest welcome to Story Sequences - this is such a wonderful surprise, thank you for participating with such an amazing capture!

I would have imagined the Kite would "bribe" his partner... surprisingly, she trusts him to bring the gift after the mating has occurred:tinysmile_shy_t: - such an interesting behavioural aspect of this species!

Love the continuity here, the entire sequence has this feel of something I call "a spot of time" - it is all happening so fast. I also like the framing (constant space in the consecutive frames) and the uninterrupted flow of action in your story.

In terms of techs, great DOF and exposure is spot-on, lovely natural colours - it all seems effortless and I have no favourite frame, for I love them all:S3:, a very special encounter beautifully captured and thoughtfully presented!

Thank you Marina, I thoroughly enjoyed viewing and I so appreciate your contribution, kindly keep this Forum in mind in the future when you witness something special:5

Warmest regards,

Loi Nguyen
05-21-2015, 06:17 PM
Hi Marina, great sequence! I have only seen a swallowed kite once briefly when he/she flew over the car, so to see and be able to photograph this sequence is a great story. May be this is a new couple, so they still need to learn the moves. Perfect exposure. Loi

Mads Syndergaard
05-22-2015, 09:50 AM
Impressive stuff Marina!

Andre Pretorius
05-25-2015, 03:02 PM
Hi Marina

Well captured and processed, I presume it is almost FF with F10 and 1000mm..
Love the sequence, whites well exposed, comp with stick works!
Either a very small frog or a BIG bird- no wonder she is not impressed with his small frog..:t3

Diane Miller
05-30-2015, 09:33 AM
Gorgeous in every respect -- techs and action. Beautiful Vs of wings and tails, and an amazing behavior capture!

Marc Mol
06-02-2015, 07:53 AM
A wonderful sequence of behaviour feeding here Marina, looks like that stick wasn't made for the pair :bg3:

TFS

Ákos Lumnitzer
06-03-2015, 05:37 AM
What an amazing thing to witness Marina. Expertly captured. For me the first and second are the strongest of the two. I really like how she is anticipating the handover in the first shot.
Killer sequence!

Marina Scarr
06-03-2015, 01:41 PM
Thanks for all of the comments. I wish this were full frame, Andre, but this perch was quite far away. I would say it's about a 30% crop. This pair continues to nest in the same park; however, their perch broke off a couple of years ago so they are no longer mating out in the open as they did here. Big bummer! They have one young in the nest right now that will be fledging soon.