Skimmer (Dead while Pipping)

[Fabs Forns]

From the distance, I thought the bird had an empty shell on his bill. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was a fish. He ate it himself and I only got three frames of it.
Overcast conditions.


Model: Canon EOS 7D
Lens (mm): 600
ISO: 800
Aperture: 8
Shutter: 1/400

[arash_hazeghi]

another great shot Fabs, he better finish that fish fast with the seagull in BG!

[Fabs Forns]

another great shot Fabs, he better finish that fish fast with the seagull in BG!

Chick in the BG!!!
Thanks!

[arash_hazeghi]

Chick in the BG!!!
Thanks!

thought it was gull :D

[Rod Warnock]

Wow!! What a capture!! Handling of blacks so well done. Even the position of the feet ad spontaneity to the image.
Best regards
Rod Warnock

[Michael Stern]

Fabs,
What a neat photo...with a Puffer!!!
Mike

[Nick Palmieri]

Real nice capture. The exposure on the bird looks great. Great job! TFS

[Grace Scalzo]

Full of interest with the puffer and the chick. The colors are so simple and beautiful.

[D. Robert Franz]

Wonderful capture Fabs....

[Colin Knight]

Love the look of the landscape here. Nice angle and great catch for the both of you.

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Fabs,

Very nice capture. The angle of the bird and the crossed legs are appealing. The clean simple background displays the bird very nicely. I like the inclusion of the out-of-focus foreground. I like that you kept the chick in the background and the fish is the icing on the cake. Thanks for sharing.

[Troy Lim]

This should have been skimmers week :)
Nice to see all the different type of shots.
It sure looks like an empty egg shell. Nice exposure.

[John Chardine]

This is lovely Fabs. The chick in the BG is a subtle, wonderful touch. Agree, really great exposure with detail in the shadows and highlights- what more could you ask for overcast!)?

And I'm seeing an eggshell in the bill, although I can certainly believe Puffer Fish, some/many of which are poisonous.

[Fabs Forns]

After reading John's post, I revisited the file, cropped the object at 100%, upsized to 800 pixels (from 470) and it is and eggshell, but not empty :)
Look at the little wing!
I didn't see anything strange around, so I guess the adult was helping the chick out?
Let's hope so!

[John Chardine]

Very interesting Fabs! I would guess this is a skimmer egg, probably from this bird's nest. Some eggs fail to hatch even though the embryo develops fully- if the chick pips out of the egg- i.e., makes a hole in the egg- we call it "died while pipping". As I said it happens at a certain, low frequency in any seabird colony. It's possible that this chick "died while pipping" and the parent is removing it from the nest. Terns and gulls typically remove eggshells from the nest and drop them some distance away. This is perhaps done to reduce the attraction to the nest of predators.

This is yet another fantastic example of how photography is so effective at illustrating the minute aspects of the natural world.

[Fabs Forns]

Fascinating, John. No wonder I only saw it for a couple of seconds. He probably threw it in a patch of grass or weeds.
Thanks for the explanation and for your opinion, that made it take a closer look.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great to have John around, thanks for the explanation! I have never seen an image of this behavior before and it makes it even more interesting than it already is. I particularly like the inclusion of the chick in the BG.

[arash_hazeghi]

haha the full size reveals everything, poor chick :(

[Morkel Erasmus]

wonderful image and even better behaviour that was captured...TFS Fabs! interesting facts from John...

[Hendri Venter]

This rock Fabs. Wonderful image and TFS.