Oystercatcher Chick

[denise ippolito]

Canon 1D Mark III
500mm +1.4 ex.
1/1000 sec. at f/8
ISO 400
Manual mode
Tripod low to ground
I know the head angle is not perfect but I think it is good enough. Large crop. Could be sharper. There is one egg and the egg shell that the chick hatched from. This chick is approx. 12 hours old or less. I didn't want to clone the loose shells etc. I thought it might look too sterile.

[Nick Palmieri]

Very nice! Not bothered by the head angle. The eggs are over the top. I may remove the orange thing in the OOF FG but no big deal.

[Thomas Finnie]

Your picture really tells a story Denise. Impressive detail, colors and especially composition! :)

Thanks for sharing,
Tom

[Arthur Morris]

It was a little baby, probably just hours old at most. A smidge more head turn would not have hurt. Good work with tough light and tough light angle :)

[Joe Senzatimore]

Glad you didn't clean it up as the pieces are part of the story of this beautiful image.

[Don Lacy]

Hi Denise, The egg shells give the image that little extra element that helps make the image more successful and interesting, well done

[Grace Scalzo]

I find the head angle to be just fine, Denise. Your eye for these little ones is wonderful, and the inclusion of the eggs adds so much.

[Troy Lim]

Denise, what HA? :p
I like the HA, it is almost like the chick has some attitude, giving you the dirty look.
Love this shot, TFS.

[arash_hazeghi]

very cute Denise, love how the check is looking at her siblings in the eggs!!!

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Denise, cuteness factor 10/10. I like how the chick seems to be looking back at you, and well placed in the frame. The other shells balances the comp, and adds interest too. An opportunity well used.

[denise ippolito]

Thank you all for your kind comments. I appreciate them.:)

[Michael Zajac]

I like the softness and the comp of the pic.And the morning light.
Well done.

[DustinFinn]

I think the head turn looks fine, if I were to complain about anything it would be the lack of a catch-light in the eye. But really, thats just as minor as the head turn when you take all of this image in.

Love comp, good look, nice story and setting.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Denise,
Man....we were fortunate to get the chick this young and close! What I am most proud of....is that everyone on our workshop also got this!!! Glad to see some others noticed the eggs also!!!

[Sid Garige]

Egg and the chick make this image for me. IMO HA was not an issue for this image.

[Dave Hassell]

Where were the parent birds whilst all this photography was going on?

The chicks and eggs have been left extremely vulnerable The parent bird should be at the nest protecting their young and eggs from any marauding predators.

I expect they were being kept away by the photographers.

Any form of nest photgraphy should only be carried out with extreme care and only by bird photographers with lots of experience and a sound knowledge of the target species.

This year on BPN there seems to be a lot of images of young waders (shorebirds) and terns taken at or near their nests and I wonder how much damage has been done. For example, there was a recent image of a chick being attacked by a Gull-billed Tern. In my opinion, the parents should have been protecting it but they were not and I bet if the phorographer had not been present the tern would not have got anywhere near it as it would have been protected by it's parent.

They may look 'cute' to the photographer and get a score of 10/10 but they should be left alone to get on unmolested with their nesting.

Terns are especially prone to disturbance at their colonies and will fly up in a mass to mob any intruder, including humans, and any gull or crow can quickly fly in and grab an egg or chick.

Dave Hassell.

[denise ippolito]

Dave,
The chick being attacked by the tern was my shot. I was on the beach photographing Oystercatchers and the plover chicks and adult came running by me-I had not moved to allow them space. My images were with a 500mm lens and a 1.4 ex they were huge crops. So you are wrong. I remained in that position for quite some time and the adult and 2 chicks came towards me-again I did not move, they were not being upset by my presence.

Regarding this image. The adults were close by but often left the eggs and chicks for short periods of time. They are in a nesting colony on a beach that is frequented by humans all day long. I was outside of the ropes and did not disturb the Oystercatchers at all. They are very loud and anxious when being disturbed.
Your statement "I expect they were being kept away by the photographers." is insulting to me. I am not going to keep adult birds from their eggs and chick for the sake of a picture and I resent that you would accuse me w/o knowing me.

[Michael Zajac]

Dave maybe you should know the situation before you make a comment.

[Troy Lim]

Where were the parent birds whilst all this photography was going on?

The chicks and eggs have been left extremely vulnerable The parent bird should be at the nest protecting their young and eggs from any marauding predators.

I expect they were being kept away by the photographers.

Any form of nest photgraphy should only be carried out with extreme care and only by bird photographers with lots of experience and a sound knowledge of the target species.

This year on BPN there seems to be a lot of images of young waders (shorebirds) and terns taken at or near their nests and I wonder how much damage has been done. For example, there was a recent image of a chick being attacked by a Gull-billed Tern. In my opinion, the parents should have been protecting it but they were not and I bet if the phorographer had not been present the tern would not have got anywhere near it as it would have been protected by it's parent.

They may look 'cute' to the photographer and get a score of 10/10 but they should be left alone to get on unmolested with their nesting.

Terns are especially prone to disturbance at their colonies and will fly up in a mass to mob any intruder, including humans, and any gull or crow can quickly fly in and grab an egg or chick.

Dave Hassell.


You should have asked the photographer before making a comment like that. It only makes yourself look bad.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

It would be good to keep the discussion civil. Maybe we should start a thread in 'general photography' on photographing nesting birds since it is a controversial and important issue. I'm sure that we all agree that nesting success is more important than images.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi David,

re:

Where were the parent birds whilst all this photography was going on?

The adults were doing various things "whilst all this photography was going on." I know, because I was there. Here are some of the things that they were doing: incubating the eggs or the remaining eggs. Picking at stuff in the sand in the vicinity of the nest. Flying away (usually one at a time) to feed. Flying to attach other oystercatchers that flew too near the nest site. Staying in close proximity first to the one hatched chick and then the two. Incubating the same. They were pretty much doing what adult oystercatchers do. This site is visited regularly by photographers and was unusually accepting of our presence. They did indeed choose a nest site about 30 feet from the boundary of the colony as marked by the protective ropes. And several Common Terns have chosen to nest as close as 15 feet from the ropes. More than a few pairs of American Oystercatchers and Piping Plovers choose to nest outside the ropes and those birds are almost always protected by the researcher/biologists with either protective stringing off of the colony and, for the plovers, nest exclosures.

There have been two successful colonies of skimmers and Least and Common Terns at Nickerson for many years, that on a beach that sees thousands of beach-goers and dozens of photographers most every day. For the most part the colonies go undisturbed and unmolested but for the occasional drunk or malicious person who goes beyond the ropes. I will not get into the disturbance right or wrong caused by researchers at tern colonies.

Though I am a photographer my qualifications for making the comments above include my shorebird book, "Shorebirds; Beautiful Beachcombers," 8 seasons of conducting the ISS survey at JBWR, several visits to the Great Gull Island tern colony, the most studied vertebrate population in history, 37 years of observing shorebirds, and 28 years of observing photographers :)

The chicks and eggs have been left extremely vulnerable.

The chicks and eggs of beach nesting shorebirds are always extremely vulnerable.

The parent bird should be at the nest protecting their young and eggs from any marauding predators.

Ah, you are sounding a bit like God there telling the birds what they should be doing....

I expect they were being kept away by the photographers.

You can "expect" whatever you like but in my three days of observation I did not see the birds react to the human presence even once. They came to and left the nest totally undisturbed, in part due to the fact that all of the photographers approached their photographic positions either low and slowly or slowly on their knees.

Out of ignorance you have failed to appreciate the situation: a beach crowded with thousands of folks and dozens of loud beach-raking machines every day. The beaches at Lido are in no way similar to nesting areas in the UK.

Any form of nest photgraphy should only be carried out with extreme care and only by bird photographers with lots of experience and a sound knowledge of the target species.

Agree and that is the case at Nickerson. The experienced photographers guide the newcomers both by example and instruction.

This year on BPN there seems to be a lot of images of young waders (shorebirds) and terns taken at or near their nests and I wonder how much damage has been done.

Again, you are free to wonder.

For example, there was a recent image of a chick being attacked by a Gull-billed Tern.

Please supply a link so that I can offer an opinion.

In my opinion, the parents should have been protecting it but they were not...

There you go again playing God.

And I bet if the photographer had not been present the tern would not have got anywhere near it as it would have been protected by it's parent.

Again, your ignorance is showing. Baby terns get attacked by predators every day in circumstances where there are no photographers present. I am not saying that there are not some photographers who approach beach nesting chicks to closely on occasion but that is the rule rather than the exception.

They may look 'cute' to the photographer and get a score of 10/10 but they should be left alone to get on unmolested with their nesting.

The oystercatcher parents of the chick in the image above were totally unmolested.

Terns are especially prone to disturbance at their colonies and will fly up in a mass to mob any intruder, including humans, and any gull or crow can quickly fly in and grab an egg or chick.

And if the approaching human sits down and remains still the birds will quickly re-settle. On the other hand, researchers are constantly moving through a colony weighing eggs and trapping chicks causing almost continuous disturbances.

Respectfully posted.

[Arthur Morris]

For David, Above is a typical Nickerson photographer, Alan Rube, who was visiting for the first time. He was photographing some Least Tern chicks. BTW, the adult terns of this species are away from the chicks for huge amounts of time as they fish to feed the chicks.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Artie is correct,
This is unlike any other nesting site period. He also forgot to mention the dogs running the beach!!! There are signs clearly stating no dogs.......on this day someone in the morning let 2 run loose spooking the entire colony and making them airborn for what seems like an hour....but is usually only seconds. Then there is the proximity of the tern, OC, and skimmer nests. I have witnessed many dead chicks......who strayed too close to the other species. There is always a beach patrol that keeps an eye on us (at that early hour) but I haven't quite figured out why they say nothing about the dogs? Don't get me wrong.....I love dogs.....but I have seen 100's of them run towards the fence of the colony.....spooking it......yet no photographer that I have witnessed has ever encroached on the colony. When someone walking the beach does.....the terns will immediately let them know about it. Just giving you a better visual of the place.

[Krijn Trimbos]

I like the scene very much Denise! Love the inclusion of the eggs. If this were mine I would probably turn this into a pano with the empty space on top, a little more of a HT would have made this even better. Thanks for sharing

[denise ippolito]

Thank you all for your comments.:)