oiled Razorbill

[John Chardine]

I found this adult Razorbill today near Deer Island, New Brunswick. The two and a half grooves in the bill tell you it's an adult, an old one at that. It was in the water, madly preening and we could approach the bird by boat, which we did cautiously. Normal birds would have dived but this one just kept preening, so I knew something was wrong. Then I saw a 2 cm diameter splotch of oil under it's tail. The oil matts the feathers and is essentially a hole in the bird's wet suit which keeps her warm and dry. Cold water infiltrates and soaks the down feathers, and the bird preens in an attempt to dry-off. I am hopeful that the bird can preen itself clean before succumbing to hypothermia (water temps were 12°C/54°F). The moral to the story is that a small amount of oil can be very damaging.

As far as the image is concerned, the lighting was horrendous- bright, bright sun, and on a black and white bird is was almost impossible. In ACR I Recovered the LR whites which were over the top. Then burned-in after. Cropped, NR on BG and some sharpening (didn't need much; the 400/5.6 is killer sharp).

Note, the bird is starting to moult into winter plumage.


Canon EOS 50D, 400 mm f5.6
capture date: Thursday, 27 August 2009, 2:50 PM
exposure program: Manual
ISO speed: 800
shutter speed: 1/3200
aperture: f6.3
exposure bias: +0.0
metering: Pattern
flash: OFF- this would have helped but did not have time to set up flash
Handheld from moving boat

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the sharpness and head angle and hope she is going to make it. I find it very upsetting to see animals suffer because of carelesness.

[denise ippolito]

John, Thankyou for sharing this very moving story. I hope she was able to preen her feathers enough.
Beautiful sharpness and it's nice to see an eye on one of these up close!

[Harshad Barve]

lovely sharpness and HA
TFS

[Ilija Dukovski]

That's a great image and very interesting (and upsetting) story.
Thanks for sharing.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Sad story, its just continues... my prayers for its recovery. good Image..

[John Chardine]

Here's an image showing the patch of oil under the tail. Not much is it!

Image was tone-mapped.

[denise ippolito]

The spot looks pretty big-hope she's able to clean it.