Photographed yesterday. Seeing this bird in this amount of breeding plumage was a goal I had all summer, and it was good to finally get an up close image of one.
Canon 400, 300mm + 1.4TC, ISO 200, F6.3, 1/640sec
PP: Cropped approx 20%. SH, Sat, Contrast adjust.USM, NR on BG. Cloned distracting elements in bg.
Hi Mark Good looking bird and nice pose !! Wish you could have gotten him a few inches forward to eliminate the black area by the tail !! Image is sharp and well exposed.
If you stay put these guys will come right up to you, curious they are !!! Breeding plumage wise its just starting, the front will go all black but by that time they are long gone !!! PS wise might lighten the eye area without a catchlight looks sort of dull !!
Thanks Alfred. I'll try a repost with the suggestions when I get home tonight.
These birds behave differently here. They are very shy and are the hardest birds to get close to photograph. I have much better results with the Red-necked Stints, Grey-tailed Tattlers, Double-banded Plovers and Sharp-tailed Sandpipers all allowing me to get as close as 5-8 metres away from them. But the Ruddy Turnstones wont allow me to approach closer than 10 meters, and the PGP's are even worse! The fact that I took this image at about 10 meters distance was a small miracle! Usually it's almost double that distance.
I was able to use a small gully to get close to it and as I got into position it saw me and took off, briefly stopping for 2 secs which is when I got this shot.
I'm envious of you blokes seeing these guys in full breeding plummage, and I'm anxiously waiting for some pictures to start appearing of these and other Shorebirds on their way north. This however, is about as good as it gets, maybe a tad more darker but never in full plummage.
Pacific Golden Plover
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