Bar-tailed Godwits

[Tony Whitehead]

For the past few months work and other chaos has made it hard to find time for BPN, let alone getting out to make photos. Managed a few days away with the family for the school holidays and was lucky enough to get a few opportunities on birds. Started at Miranda with the Godwits that have arrived back from their northern hemisphere breeding grounds. The weather was bad around the high tide with no decent light but managed a couple of high key BIF images against the overcast sky. A lot of the birds are moulting their flight feathers which gives the wings a strange look as in the individual on the right. Patched out a few other birds and added a small amount of canvas on the right.
Nikon D300
Nikon 200-400 @270mm
Matrix +2.0 EC
ISO 800, f5.6, 1/1000s
SB900 + BB @ +0 EC
Comments and advice appreciated as always.

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Tony, Glad that you got out a bit. Love the wing position of the first and the last birds. And like the high key look. I am thinking that the two rear birds might be juveniles with the neatly patterned underwings and no molt at all.

Do you have another image or two in the series?

[Tony Whitehead]

Hi Artie. I think you may be right regarding juveniles. Had a couple more but lots of overlaps with OOF nearer an farther birds so nothing of use.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Tony. I was just looking for you to have one more nice wing position so that you could have replaced the one in the middle--easy to do with the white skies.

[John Blumenkamp]

Hi Tony... I like the high key aspect of this one too, as well as the vaired wing positions of the three birds.

[Harshad Barve]

lovely framing and expo , High key looks great here
TFS

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Tony, interesting looking birds, nothing like that here. Good to see all three in focus, and with varied wing positions. Good call on the +EC to show them up in overcast conditions. Well captured.

[Phil Battley]

Hi Tony,

Fantastic moult shot! The bird on the right will be an immature, possibly just a 2nd-year that is yet to moult its first set of primaries. Adults will only just be starting their moult now, and the amount of wear on those primaries suggests they have been held onto longer than adults usually do. The left two are probably adults - immatures (which overwinter/summer down here) tend to be more advanced in primary moult than adults, while new juvs will be sporting heavily notched feathers. You'd probably see them on the left-most bird, which seems to be moulting coverts on the upperwing, something juvs would not be doing yet.

Glad to see some shots of the world's most interesting bird showing up here!

Cheers, Phil (heavily biased...)

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Phil. You obviously know this species better than I do. I will say that when it comes to the timing of molt individual birds can vary greatly. I would love to see an image of a juvie showing those heavily notched feathers. Which feathers would those be? Do post an image if you have one. And after a second look the pattern of the underwing feathers looks to be quite even and the feathers seem fresh, all indicating that they might be birds of the year. I will try for a second opinion

[denise ippolito]

Beautiful HK image and the exposure and details are great. I like the birds varied wing positions in the frame-It gives the viewer a complete look at the wings. I never saw one of these so TFS.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Noce poses, high key, comp, detail, sharpness and overall mood. I loved it.
Congratulations!

[Phil Battley]

Hi Artie et al,

For juv Bar-tails look at Nobuhiro Hashimoto's Shorebirds of Japan site:

http://shorebirds.exblog.jp/pg/blog....A16%3A00%2E000

He does fantastic digiscoping work, and the first four images on the linked page are juv Bar-tails on southward migration. Juvs show obvious notched tertials, scapulars and mantle feathers, and fringed or notched wing coverts. They usually have a buffy wash on the breast.

Bear in mind that adult godwits will have done much or often most of their prebasic body moult before leaving Alaska. I don't know when exactly they moult their underwing coverts, but I have never seen any obvious wear on those feathers in birds in the hand at any time of the year, so I don't think that their appearance says anything about their age (unlike on the upperparts). The clincher here is that there seems to be remnants of reddish breeding plumage on the breast of both of the left-hand birds. Maybe a closeup from the original would reveal more.

Cheers, Phil