High Speed ~ Full Spread Laughing Gull

I photograph Laughing Gulls all the time and I've always found them to be beautiful in flight.

Two Saturdays ago I was working in the tern breeding colony and watched one particular Laughing Gull that was what I call a "hot bird". It was repeatedly chasing the terns in order to steal the food they were bringing to their offspring hidden in the dune grass and it would repeatedly make specific moves to come back around the dunes in order to ambush from behind.

A bit of a different gull presentation which I'm pleased with, although the crop seems a little out of whack...except I couldn't find a crop I liked better?

Your thoughts?

Nikon D300, 500 AFS~VR, ISO 640, f 7.1, 1/3200, NearUniWB preset, CW metering, 0EV

Great shot, I like the open bill and the range of tones in the plumage is excellent. I also like the composition.
Jon

Brilliant capture, sharp and good exposure too.

Hi Jim,

This is very nice. The wings and open beak do the job for me. However, I would like to see the bird a little lower in the frame. I don't mind the room in front of it.

Well captured Jim. I agree with Maxis about moving the bird lower in the frame. It shouldn't be any problem even if you need to add some canvas on the top.

Initially, I had the bird positioned lower in the frame but the relative location of the head bugged me....I'll try it again this evening.

Cool banking pose, details, fanned tail and the open bill adds to it. I would also put him lower in the frame and there is a slight S/H halo around the wing tips.

Like it a lot! The whole pose is amazing! Despite a few hot whites, I just like it very much as is! Congratulations!

If you decide to recompose: adding a bit of canvas above would be preferable than re-cropping as you wouldn't want to lose any of that already thin cloud layer at bottom. Just an awesome banking pose accentuated by the tail spread.

Really nice Jim. I wouldn't want to lose the wispy clouds at the bottom of the frame either. Love the banking pose, eye contact, and open beak. Thanks for posting!

I'd crop from below and from the front. Great pose. Was this a VERT ORIG?

I may be good / lucky at times in horizontal mode, but I wouldn't honestly have tried this in vertical :)

I do have actual image canvas still available at the top...I simply cropped below it.