Terek Sandpiper

[Craig Brelsford]

The adventures were many and the birds were plentiful at my spot just north of Shanghai along the Jiangsu coast this month. The eastern edge of Eurasia sure is a special place to be in the springtime. To shoot shorebirds optimally, one needs the right season, the right light, and the right tide. If you time the tide correctly, you can sit still and wait for the incoming water to "push" the shorebirds toward you. For this shot, I got two of three right. It was of course the height of migration season. The light, moreover, was perfect; on a clear evening, the sun was going down just as the tide was rolling in. But bad luck hit; it was a weak tide. I saw that the birds were not going to come to my position. So I had to go out to them. At 50 m from the tide line I hit the mud. I crawled to within 19 meters of the vanguard of birds, at which point I got this shot. As if crawling 30 m across the mud was difficult enough, I also had to continually adjust my settings and keep my eyes open for opportunities. It was frustrating to get so close to these wonderful birds and then have them jumble up into a confusing mass in the frame. Finally this terek sandpiper emerged. Not only is the terek nicely isolated from the flock, but he's also the only one of his kind in the image; the others are dunlins.

Device: Nikon D3S
Lens: VR 600mm F/4G
Focal Length: 850mm (used 1.4x teleconverter)
Aperture: F/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/2500
Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Comp.: -0.33
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 800
Subject Distance: 21.1 m
Photoshoppery: Noise reduction on OOF BG. Sharpening of parts in focus. I decided on a pano crop.

[Stu Bowie]

Craig, thanks for sharing your skills on creating this image, and you certainly went to the ends of the earth to get it. :w3 I love the one legged poses these guys do, and the sandpiper is tack sharp, and nicely isolated. Having so many others around, Im not sure you could have isolated him completely free from the others. Good idea with the pano.

[gail bisson]

I appreciate the hard work you went to for this shot but I'm not loving it. The black (line)bird on the right is very distracting. I like the pano. Can you remove or clone out the black?
Gail

[DanWalters]

Like the pano crop and the low angle. JUst wish sharp bird on the left had more of the body showing.

[Mark Young]

Nice image Craig.

[Craig Brelsford]

Like the pano crop and the low angle. JUst wish sharp bird on the left had more of the body showing.

Dan, yep, it's a pity about the half-concealed dunlin. It was a funny feeling to have worked so hard to get so close to so many birds and to find that I STILL had much work to do to get good images. The biggest problem, as I wrote above, was finding an isolated bird. I only had a few minutes with them at 19 m, because by the time I got that close the tide was already rolling out, and as the water grew shallower and finally receded completely the shorebirds began to get nervous. Finally, they flew off in one huge mass.

Also unfortunate, as others noted above, is that black and white shell-like blob top right. It's actually a grey plover in full breeding plumage--a very splendid specimen if in sharp focus.

Thanks to all for your comments.