Piping Plover Charge

[Ryan Schain]

I was photographing ultra-low angle portraits of the foreground bird with a relatively slow shutter speed (1/300), when it was suddenly charged by another male. I switched and aimed for the incoming bird, but didn't have time to change my settings for action. Luckily it worked out.

Chatham, Massachusetts
June 11, 2011

1/300
f/6.3
400 mm
ISO 400
+ 1 1/3 EV

[laurie golden]

I love the charging pose with the wings out and a head on view. Not sure I like the out of focus bird on the right.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice and interesting pose captured Ryan. I would do a little clean up of the beach and might want eliminate the OOF bird.

[Arthur Morris]

Cool behavior for sure. I like the o-o-f bird but it needs more room in front of it.... Do you have any room in front in the original? Yes to come beach clean-up.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Awesome behaviour!! Love the charging pose. The OOF bird adds to the story but I do wish it was less OOF (I know these situations come out of the blue and it is better to just pull the trigger as you did rather than fiddle with settings). That one twig in the middle needs to go - it just competes for attention too much.

[Mark Itol]

Love the pose on this one. The OOF bird indeed adds story.

[Ryan Schain]

Thanks all.

Artie, unfortunately there's no room in front of the bird in any of my images, but I will try to add some canvas to the image when I get home (also a beach clean up). I will post to this thread when I finish. Thanks again!

[Ryan Schain]

Cleaned up the beach and background, and added some canvas to the left on Artie's suggestion.

Thoughts?

[Robert Holguin]

Very nice shot. Excellent action captured. Very nice low angle. At first I did not like the oof bird, but with Arthur's suggestion and seeing the repost. This pic is now superb.
Very well done.

[Arthur Morris]

Cleaned up the beach and background, and added some canvas to the left on Artie's suggestion. Thoughts?

I am thinking that it is much improved. From the Advanced Composition and Image Design section of ABP II: whenever an element is included in the frame be sure to include the whole thing with a nice border.