Well I'm not sure about the sex of these Common Tern fledglings, but I do know at least that they are in the same brood and used to being close to each other. The young ones are fledging from the Shediac Bay Marina colony in New Brunswick. These have their bills open in anticipation of being fed. The normally aggressive parents are very tolerating of your presence at this stage and are happy to fly in and out, delivering food on a regular basis.
Despite the good light, I upped the ISO to 800 to allow a small aperture and thus lots of depth of field to obtain focus on both birds. I cropped a little, lightened the eyes a little and cleaned up an ugly pile of fish bones (tern pellets on the deck).
Date: 29 July, 2010, Time: 12:03h
Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Lens: EF500mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x @ 700 mm
Program: Manual
ISO 800, 1/1000s, f/11
Exp. comp.: 0.0
Flash: no flash
John, I love this image. The begging poses are nice, as is the pano crop with just enough background to compliment and not overpower. Lots of fun little details too, like the remnants of fuzz on the left one's head and the fresh juvenile feathers. There's a tiny little dust spot above the left one's head (as viewed) which you may wish to remove, but other than that I have nothing but praise for this image.
Wonderful light, open bills, and siblings! Getting about two inches higher would have avoided the partial merge of the dock with the head of the bird on our left.
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