Black-bellied Plover

[Dorian Anderson]

These guys will be headed back to the arctic soon, so I'm trying to get my last licks in before they disappear until next fall!

You gotta love those black axillaries or 'armpit' feathers as they are diagnostic for identification from American Golden-Plover
and Pacific Golden-Plover at all seasons. Amazing that those don't change color during molt but adjacent breast feathers do!

Black-bellied Plover - winter plumage
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II on EOS 7D2
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 400
Minimal processing in Lightroom

As much as I love my 500 I and my 400 DO II, shooting with this lens (particularly while birding!) is a joy.

Also, I find my 7D2 renders the blues much bluer than my 5D4. That's fine with me as I tend to push my shots a bit in the blue
direction, blue bing my favorite color.

Cheers
Dorian

[Isaac Grant]

Nice one Dorian. I am envious. Have mentioned it in the past but in and around NY BBP's are just impossible to get near. Have only been close to one ever up here. If they fly it is typically straight away from you and when you are 200 feet away! Somehow when the birds get to Florida they become tame. Go figure. I also have the 100-400 ii and it feels like a toy compared to the 500. Everything looks really good on this one. Being super picky I would have preferred the close wing to be higher up.

[Bill Dix]

Nice work catching one of these bullets in flight; and with his signature armpit showing. Head looks tack sharp. Yes, in a perfect world the near wing would have been higher, but this is a fine capture.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm a bit luckier than Isaac in that I do get 1 or 2 tame individuals every other year, but yes, the rest are as described! I also agree with Isaac about the near wing, but everything else is superb.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dorian, great flight pose ( near wing position already mentioned ) and nicely separated from the water BG. Well exposed and sharpness spot on.

You mentioned you like to push your blues - were the original blues dull, or do you like to boost the colours to make the image pop.

[Dorian Anderson]

Hi Dorian, great flight pose ( near wing position already mentioned ) and nicely separated from the water BG. Well exposed and sharpness spot on.

You mentioned you like to push your blues - were the original blues dull, or do you like to boost the colors to make the image pop.

Blues were there already, but I boosted the saturation a bit and knocked down the luminance a bit to make the shot pop a bit more.
I also find that I almost always slide the blue-yellow slider towards blue a few ticks to get a crisper, cooler blue, but that's more a matter
of personal preference than it is anything technical. I don't, for example, actually like the super warm golden light that so many
others prefer as it imbues my preferred, watery blues with too much pink and yellow! I am sure some of that comes from always living near
the ocean (NYC, Boston, LA, SF), and I think I might appreciate those warmer, yellower tones if I did more over-land (as opposed to over-water)
shooting.