Loon with Catch

[Dave Mills]

Shot this at Barneget,NJ. These guys are constantly diving for crabs and you don't know where they will come up.
You have to constantly scan the water to see where they come up then zero in on them and hope they have a crab and are facing in a good direction. Doesn't take long for them to gobble up...
I might have posted this in Avian awhile back...memory is failing
Nikon D300,500mm,F/8,1/3200, -1/3 comp,iso 800,tripod mtd

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Hi Dave, very nice image. Love the sharp red eye, but you may consider cloning out the second (lower) catch light. The wavy deep-blue water, the tack-sharp water drops in the head & neck, and especially the crab in the beak help to make this a fine keeper IMO.

If you purposely wanted the eye in the middle (horizontally), that doesn't bother me at all. Otherwise, you may wish to crop on the right.

[Ian Cassell]

That red eye is really cool -- reminds me of the neotropic cormorant green-eyes that I see out here. Could there be a touch too much foreground water?

BTW, I have a house in Ocean County at the Jersey Shore and have spent a lot of time at Barnegat with my kids. Now that I've started doing bird photography more seriously, I'm going to have to go looking for loons. All I've photographed in Jersey has been herons/egrets/ibis in the marshes of Ocean County.

[Dave Leroy]

Very nicely done Dave and from the settings it must have been fairly bright light.

I like the profile of both the crab and loon's head-good timing.

We get them out here eating crabs as well, just hard to get this close. Good for you.

[Alfred Forns]

One happy bird Dave !!!! He sure looks proud of that crab ... on the other hand the crab is not all that pleased :)

[Lance Peters]

Hi Dave - like this a lot - just a little off the bottom for my personal tastes :)

[Dave Mills]

Thanks everyone...appreciate the comments. I'll probably take out that lower catchlight and play with the crop on the bottom.

Ian, I don't shoot at Barneget in the summer since most of the ducks have moved off. I start going again around late Nov or until I hear favorable reports...