Hi all. I have a number of photos of Terns, but despite having two books of Australian birds I'm still finding it difficult to id them, as the bill colour change depending on if they're breeding/juvenile/adult etc. Anyhow, I think this one is a Caspian Tern. I took it a few days ago and managed to take the photo when it was quite close to me. Consequently this is the first image where I have had to add canvas in Photoshop to add more sky. 7D Mk2, 100-400 lens. Manual exposure, 1/3200th sec, f6.3, iso640, 400mm, hand held. Some nr to background, lesser amount to the bird, 50/50 Nik colour effects recipe at 20%. I've been working hard to get sharper shots. Feedback welcome as always.
Hi, Paul. Caspian terns are huge--the largest tern, as big as a medium-sized gull, maybe a a silver gull in Oz--and this could be one, I'm not really sure. You probably will get a good answer here but Facebook Birders is a great site for getting lots of expert bird IDs quite rapidly. And people post some lovely images there too. This is definitely not breeding plumage. In North America they breed in spring and summer, and you're entering winter there so that makes sense. I am not crazy about this image, although it is well captured, sharp, and nicely exposed. The wing position, overall pose, and lighting don't excite me and a reasonably large, slow bird against a clean BG isn't inherently a difficult shot.
Caspian Tern?
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