I had a couple of great outings with courting Common Goldeneyes this past weekend. These normally rather skittish birds had spot they seemed to hang out in to flaunt their stuff to the ladies, so I made a careful approach, then laid on the ice for a few hours watching, and photographed when they were within range. The sights and sounds were rather fascinating, and watching their intimate courting rituals through the viewfinder was something I won't soon forget! Here a couple of males compete for the same gal.
Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC III, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/2500s., f/5.6, ISO 400, natural light, handheld, cropped for comp, added the pupil on the far bird (it was not showing)
Great behavior shot. The front guy is really impressive.
I might have tried to trade a bit of ss and ISO for more dof. Always a challenge when things are happening fast. If I have a family swimming together, I often try that approach. Sometimes works even!
Sounds like a wonderful experience you had Dan, and those are the keepers for sure! I like this as a behavioral image, and the colors are appealing... Glad your patience paid off!
I don't think you would have gotten both sharp even at f22 so I think its about the right amount of OOFness to the rear drake. More in focus, but still OOF would look worse to the eye and more OOF starts looking to blurry. So it's about perfect. The front drakes pose is awesome and something I have always wanted to capture. Colors and details in the whites looks great too. Well done
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I would love to see this behavior in real life someday.
Great behavioral image.
The whites look great and I love your POV.
I am on the fence about the rear drake- just no way to get him in focus unless you had a wide angle.
Gail
I love the behaviour aspect in the is shot, the Goldeneyes look awesome when they do this. Great low angle as ever, and the second bird works well in the BG - just soft enough to be right
Looking good Dan. I see this behaviour quite a lot, but nearly always too far away.. Great birds and you captured them well here. Very natural looking and I love that POV. I love it when some of them kick the water up behind them, with their feet, after the head gets raised again..
Common Goldeneye Courtship Behaviour
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