Spotted Sandpiper Chick - Minutes Out of the Nest.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I accidentally flushed an adult Spotted Sandpiper from the side of an abandoned gravel trail recently, and by its' behaviour I knew I was close to a nest. What I did not know is that this nest still had three babies huddled together in it, plus an as-yet unhatched egg! If you know about shorebirds, you will know that unlike most other birds they are born fully downy, eyes open, and ready to walk and feed within hours of hatching, so I knew these were no more than a few hours old. What a privilege to watch the wee ones go out for their first walks all around me! Once I backed up even the adult settled down did not perceive me as a threat and everyone was just casually roaming about. An image I took of the nest contents included in the second pane for visual reference of what I stumbled across.

Canon 7DII + 100-400L II + 1.4TC III @437mm, manual exposure, evalautive metering, 1/1000s., f/8, ISO 1600, natural light, handheld, FF, added a catchlight on the eye to our left (already there on the other eye).

[Daniel Cadieux]

Here is what the nest looked like when I first saw it

Canon 7DII + 100-400L II @280mm, manual exposure, evalautive metering, 1/500s., f/8, ISO 1600.

[John Mack]

What a find. The foot looks quite big already. The green in the frame is nice. I kinda like the image of all of them with the unhatched egg more than the individual. But they are both very nice frames,

[kevin Hice]

Dan nice capture may like the three young huddled together better.Agree with John on the greens.Thanks for the story. TFS

[David Roach]

Love the pose and sharp right where it needs to be. Love that OOF foot. Man you even make the straight down at the ground angle look good. TFS

[Brian Sump]

Daniel, beyond cute man. That little one in the first frame is almost surreal looking with the crazy dof you got. Thought maybe at f8 you'd capture more of him.

It's a striking photo for sure and not much not to like about it. Those FEET!!! Looks like he just got a pedicure.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Very nice, great POV, amazing feet, more dof would have been nice, but very hard to get enough here. Like the second shot as well.

Cheers

Randy

[Dorian Anderson]

The giant foot is super fun! I don't know how steady your hands are, but I might have tried to get to f/11 at 1/500 to get more DOF. That lens has great IS. It's tough to raise the ISO too much more on that body. The nest is a really great find!