Black Oystercatcher settling on nest

[Rick Bowers]

American Black Oystercatcher (Haematopusbachmani)
Pacific Grove, California, United States - June

50D, 500 f4 +1.4, 1/400 sec; f/11; ISO 400, fill flash
Noise reduction on ocean background.

This was probably a first year female or pair since they nested on the mainland 20 feet from a park bench that was occupied almost constantly. I watched the pair preparing the site the day before but thought they we just "practicing" preparing a nest because it was such a vulnerable situation. Went back the next day and there was their first egg!

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Rick, I love this. Beautiful bg neat design and great detail. I'd like to see the bird a little more off horizontal center.

[christopher galeski]

nice one,love the colors and light,sharp with nice detail,inclusion of egg nice,agree with Cheryl on position of bird.TFS.

[Martin Dunn]

Lovely capture Rick.
Great colours and detail, the egg underneath really makes the shot.
If you have it I would like to see a bit more blue sky above the Oystercatcher, so that the bird is more in the bottom RH portion of the frame

[keith mitchell]

Rick it certainly looks like a precarious place to lay eggs, the colours in this image are really nice the bird looks nice and sharp and very well exposed.

Keith.

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely image and great story. If you have any more canvas, I would crop from the right to move the bird off center.

[Shawn Zierman]

Totally awesome. I've never seen a nesting image of this species show up on the forums...very cool! Love the water background, the bird's head and bill really pop visually against it. The composition works as is to me. Excellent image!

[arash_hazeghi]

I like that we can see the egg. Well done