Red-necked Stint

[Mark Young]

I took this one about 2 weeks ago of one of the over-wintering birds. I like the low angle, but would of liked to have been able to make the bird pop a bit.

Canon 400 300F4+1.4tc, ISO200, 1/1600, -0.3

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Mark, this is quite nice and I agree with your assessment of the image. One other issue is the head angle, would love to see the bird looking toward the camera. As far as making it pop, that could easily be done with a levels or curves adjustment. Your background is nice and could maybe be blurred a little bit more. I would crop a bit from the bottom to eliminate all of the reflection and clone (or patch) the lower left edge to eliminate the stone or whatever that is. I really like the colors, there are perfect!

[Mark Young]

Thanks for the feedback Kerry. Will try a repost when I get home this afternoon with suggestions. I didn't think about the reflection, but it makes sense. I really hesitated at posting this image because of the HA, but I think the HA is perpendicular to the camera, but the eye is beyond perpendicular which looks like it may be given the impression that the head is pointing slightly away.

[John Chardine]

This is super Mark, and a new species for me. It's got a really short bill for a peep.

I love the low angle and water. Agree that the head angle could be better. Have a look at the previous ETL thread:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...read.php?70891

and scroll down to Artie's comment about the head angle. Your bird is angled towards you the same way the loon is, and Artie is recommending that the head be "on straight". What about "on straight" with a slight CW turn to get a bit more left eye contact?

One way to make the image "pop" more is to enhance the colour contrast. I use the LAB colour mode to do this. Here is the result.

[Julie Kenward]

John's repost is beautiful but you started with a nice image in the first place. Something to keep in mind that I don't think anyone has mentioned - you always want to leave enough water at the bottom of the wading images to include the "imaginary feet". In other words, there needs to be enough water for the viewer to imagine the part of the leg / feet that isn't showing due to the water. This one looks close but if you crop up to remove the reflection, you'll definitely come up short. Might just clone over the reflection instead.

[Jay Sheinfield]

Using Kerry's phrase...................I'm going to have to swim upstream on this one. Although there are things about the image I really like. I agree with Kerry on the head angle which does not follow the orientation of the body. The breast and wing feathers appear to be the sharpest which might suggest a point of focus on the shoulder rather than the head. I thing the image would be even stronger, if the head were the most forward/prominent feature of the bird and angled more toward the lens. IMHO.....as always.

Jay

[Arthur Morris]

Well, I will disagree with just about everybody above :). Except to note that the head should have been a bit more aligned with the body. Our subjects need (at least) to have their heads on straight when their bodies are angled towards us. John's repost is way to garish for me. I actually toned down the blues in my repost. The biggest improvement is losing the thing on the left.....

Please post a side view of this bird in this thread if you have one and please post more of this species in any plumage. Thanks! (I can't help it; I love shorebirds.)

[Arthur Morris]

Note to Julie: these guys have very short legs :) Even with my crop from the bottom there is lots of room for the virtual feet. (That from that guy who invented the phrase :))

[Mark Young]

Thanks everyone for your comments, feedback and reposts. I learn more each time I post here, so thank you everyone.

Arthur, the image below was taken 2 frames before the above one, so I think it's most likely the same bird. Not sure if you were being specific about this bird or just a RNS in general. I've got plenty more of this species, they are my favourite bird so I'll be posting lots more of them.

[John Chardine]

I did overdo the colour enhancement a bit! Note to self- never do this sort of thing on a crappy monitor.

I will say though that even on my really nice, calibrated Apple Cinema display at home the OP and Arties' repost just look flat to me.

[Arthur Morris]

No sweat John. I have never understood what "flat" means. Folks here use it to mean about six different things as near as I can figure. I like the look of my repost that why I posted it :)

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the side view Mark. Can you age that bird? Do you have any images of birds in juvenal plumage? Ah, and YAW.

[John Chardine]

No sweat John. I have never understood what "flat" means. Folks here use it to mean about six different things as near as I can figure. I like the look of my repost that why I posted it :)

Too true Artie about "flat", and I shouldn't use words that are ambiguous. I think it is usually used to mean low contrast but I may be wrong. This image is not low in tonal/luminance contrast, but IMO it is low in colour contrast, which is a separate thing (a black and white image has zero colour contrast but may have oodles of tonal/luminance contrast). So in this context I meant low colour contrast when I said flat. For the record, this is a lovely image no matter how you cut it, with the above noted proviso that a better head angle would have been optimal.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks John. I am sure that we can agree that the correct degree of color contrast in a given image is subjective.

[Mark Young]

Thanks for the side view Mark. Can you age that bird? Do you have any images of birds in juvenal plumage? Ah, and YAW.

This is an over-wintering 1st year imm adult in non-breeding plumage. It's about as juvenile as I can do, for the moment. We got around 250 RNS during last summer, but that number dropped to 13 during the winter months. Those over-wintering birds are all thought to be 1st year imm adults, possibly the odd second year bird too. This bird is in all non-breeding plumage, however, some birds do go through a partial breeding moult. This past winter (or current winter as it still is) I did photograph a couple of them in partial breeding moult. Normally that partial moult doesn't get much red/rufous tinge through it, but I managed a couple of images where the bird did have some rufous tinge to the scapulars. I had to send that image to some of the top shorebird blokes here to get more info on it, and who informed me of that fact.

But the exciting thing is that last week I photographed 3 new birds in eclipse plumage. The images were confirmed to be possibly 3rd year birds that over-wintered in either Korea or China (the main staging grounds between here and the breeding grounds further up north that is used in the east asian australasian flyway). The thought with those 3 birds is that there is a sort of pre-migration migration that happens from those areas a few weeks before the main migration starts to happen.

Attached is an image from last week of one of the newly arrived birds. You can clearly see the lighter/grey non-breeding plumage on the scapular and mantle feathers.

[John Chardine]

Thanks John. I am sure that we can agree that the correct degree of color contrast in a given image is subjective.

Agreed, and also affected by your particular monitor I guess.

[Arthur Morris]

This is an over-wintering 1st year imm adult in non-breeding plumage. It's about as juvenile as I can do, for the moment. We got around 250 RNS during last summer, but that number dropped to 13 during the winter months. Those over-wintering birds are all thought to be 1st year imm adults, possibly the odd second year bird too. This bird is in all non-breeding plumage, however, some birds do go through a partial breeding moult. This past winter (or current winter as it still is) I did photograph a couple of them in partial breeding moult. Normally that partial moult doesn't get much red/rufous tinge through it, but I managed a couple of images where the bird did have some rufous tinge to the scapulars. I had to send that image to some of the top shorebird blokes here to get more info on it, and who informed me of that fact.

But the exciting thing is that last week I photographed 3 new birds in eclipse plumage. The images were confirmed to be possibly 3rd year birds that over-wintered in either Korea or China (the main staging grounds between here and the breeding grounds further up north that is used in the east asian australasian flyway). The thought with those 3 birds is that there is a sort of pre-migration migration that happens from those areas a few weeks before the main migration starts to happen.

Attached is an image from last week of one of the newly arrived birds. You can clearly see the lighter/grey non-breeding plumage on the scapular and mantle feathers.

Thanks Mark, The bird in Pane #15 is what we would call a faded, molting adult. I found a similar but much brighter bird in mid-July 1975 that was New York State's first. It is my birding claim to fame :)

Lots of your terminology confuses me ;) For example, you wrote, "This is an over-wintering 1st year imm adult in non-breeding plumage" or more properly I believe, "worn, alternate plumage molting to basic plumage." You cannot have an imm adult. My gut feeling is that the bird in your image is what we would call a first winter bird, a juvenile that has molted in winter scapulars and winter greater and lesser coverts while retaining worn juvenile median coverts. That's why I asked me initial question :)

And over here we use "eclipse plumage" only for ducks.

[Mark Young]

Thanks Mark, The bird in Pane #15 is what we would call a faded, molting adult. I found a similar but much brighter bird in mid-July 1975 that was New York State's first. It is my birding claim to fame :)

Awesome stuff. I think that would be the equivalent of us seeing a Little Stint here.

Lots of your terminology confuses me ;) For example, you wrote, "This is an over-wintering 1st year imm adult in non-breeding plumage" or more properly I believe, "worn, alternate plumage molting to basic plumage." You cannot have an imm adult. My gut feeling is that the bird in your image is what we would call a first winter bird, a juvenile that has molted in winter scapulars and winter greater and lesser coverts while retaining worn juvenile median coverts. That's why I asked me initial question :)

And over here we use "eclipse plumage" only for ducks.

I'm not too sure on your terminology either. I haven't heard it referred to as alternate plumage or basic plumage before, but I've only really been endeavouring to learn about shorebird plumage for the past 8 months, which makes me still relatively new to learning about these and other shorebirds and so whilst I take all care to make sure I get it right, I'm still pretty much driving with my L plates on.

Here I've repeated what I've heard others refer to the plumage as. I generally refer my photos onto more experiences shorebirders that have a much greater degree of knowledge about this, which is what I did with this one and that's what the verdict came back as.

As far as calling it a first year imm adult, which does seem a contradiction because it's either an imm or an adult, my assumption is that it's not referred to as an adult unless it's ready to breed, which this bird isn't. I'll have to check that out though and get back to you.
And yes it's a first winter bird, which we refer to as over-wintering because it's doing essentialy that, though I have heard the term first winter bird used before.

Eclipse gets used on pretty much any bird from what I can tell to describe the plumage that's neither fully breeding or non-breeding. Whether that's a correct use of the word or not I don't know. I think that saying eclipse plummage is the same as saying partial breeding or non-breeding. Again there maybe a more correct use of the term, and it's just that that definition has just propogated around us untrained birders who don't know any better. :)

Like I said, I'm only fairly new to this and so a lot of massive gaps exist in my knowledge and in my understanding of these birds, so any knowledge that you can pass on would be very gratefully received indeed.

[Arthur Morris]

If you got to Prater, Marchant, etc. and most other shorebird guides they will be using the terms that I mentioned including "alternate" for breeding plumage and "basic" for winter of non-breeding. Something is either an adult or a juvenile :) Can't be both.... There are lots of great books out there if you want to get serious. Good luck. Are there any RNSTs by you now?

[Mark Young]

Thanks for the tip Arthur, I hadn't heard of that particular book before. The numbers have just started to increase the past 2 weeks. We went from 15 to 19 and now there are 28. We should see around 250 by November.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. Be on the lookout for juvenile birds. They will have edged feathers and warm, even patterns. Then take a great image and post it :)

Also, check out the great shorebird book by Crossley, Karlson, and (I think) O'Brien.