Black-bellied Plover Cricket Snack
A couple weeks before this shot was taken, I visited a sod farm just north of Oak Hammock Marsh, (near Stonewall, Manitoba) after reading a report of Black-bellied Plovers and Buff-bellied Sandpipers on a local birding mailing list. The birds were there, but they were hidden back on a far corner of a field and could barely be seen through binoculars. My friend John and I returned last weekend to find ~40 Black-bellied Plovers (only 2 that still had traces of breeding plumage) still occupying the field and this time, much closer to the road. I mounted my camera up on a skimmer-pod and over ~45 minutes, managed to belly crawl the couple hundred meters needed to put me right into the flock.
This shot is basically full frame (a bit was cut to level the horizon), but I added a sliver of canvas onto the right side from another image in the series to provide a bit more separation between the tail and the edge of the frame.
Canon 1DIV -- Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS -- 1/250s @ f/11 -- ISO400 -- Aperture Prioity Metering @ +2/3EV
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