Red-throated Diver

[Geoffrey Montagu]

One evening on our recent trip to Iceland, after dinner we decided to go to a pond we knew Red-throated divers might still be. We were lucky to find both parents and their one offspring. We observed the parents taking turns flying off to the nearby ocean for fish. At one point one parent and young one climbed up a grassy embankment while the other parent flew in with a rather long eel like fish and fed its young one. A grooming session followed with this wing flap. C&C welcome.

D4S, Nikon 500mm + 1.4 TC, 1/2500s, ISO 1250, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley Gimbal head.


Geoffrey

[gail bisson]

Nice POV and IQ.
The wing flap is very nice.
I just wish he was angled a bit more towards you.( I had this problem as well with the divers.)
The exposure is perfect because it is soooo...easy to blow the whites on these guys,
gail

[annmpacheco]

I'm with Gail, Geoffrey, just wishing for more head turn... maybe a tad of CC rotation. nice wing flap!

[Kirk Benson]

Beautiful light, love the low POV Geoffrey, and the wing flap is very nice... as others have mentioned if the bird was turned a bit more toward you it would have been really special. :-)

Kirk

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp with a good exposure and good timing as noted but you were done in by the wind direction...

a

[Bill Dix]

Handsome wing flap, with the wings in full extension. Nice light and very good exposure. Head angle noted.

As a point of interest: My experience (vastly limited as it is in comparison to Artie's) is that when there is a wind, birds will perform their wing flap facing into it. In this instance there was virtually no wind. When this loon initiated his wing flap he (or she) was facing toward us (I was sitting just to the right of Geoffrey). With each successive frame, as the flap sequence progressed, the bird rotated just a bit further to the right so that by the end of the sequence (frame # 14 for me), at peak wing flap captured here, the bird had rotated just past the focal plane. Alas. I captured two other wing flap sequences that evening, in which the bird was facing to my left; but neither was as good a flap as this.

[Doug Brown]

Gorgeous setting and nice light. The others have commented on the head angle, so I would only add that the bird doesn't seem tack sharp on my monitor.

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Bill, When there is absolutely no wind the birds will of course flap in whatever direction they please. Many times, however, the birds can determine a wind direction that is not perceived by us. You can tell by watching the consistency of the directions of their take-offs, landings, and yes, flaps. But you are right, I should not assume that there was a wind direction. My excuse: most times there is.

a

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Thank you everyone.


Geoffrey