Birds, and lots of 'em

I recently made three photographic trips. The first was to Evangeline Beach where I photographed thousands of semi-palmated samdpipers and plovers. I will post the other two trips later: the Bay of Fundy and Kejimkujik National Park.

Each year in July thousands of these birds congregate on the Minas Basin to feed on the mudflats. If you go on the fall of high tide the birds are crammed together on small beaches waiting for flats to be exposed so they can binge on those delightful invertebrates. So I went down there to have a look...

I used my Canon EOS 40D and 100-400mm L USM lens.

At the smallest of sounds, or movement or smell the birds take flight.

They have a brown upper and a white lower so in the air they produce wonderful and colourful patterns

Sanderlings, Sable Island, Canada

Here are three photos of sanderlings on Sable Island


This photo has an appeal to me because the birds look like and are acting like people, walking out to sea. I was going to crop more of the sea but I think the sky above the sea adds to the feeling of vastness.




This photo has an appeal because of the intricacy that is offered by being close to the birds and the details (colour and form) in the wavelets. I also like the shadows of the birds and the single direction of travel.




This photo has an appeal because of the haphazard nature of the birds and their shadows.

The three photos had the same settings:
1/500th, f 8.0, exposure bias +0.67, ISO 200, focal length 300; RAW, Adobe RGB
Most of adjustments were made in Camera RAW.

Damian

Sanderlings in flight, Sable Island, Canada

Here is the first of the images that I captured on Sable Island. This photo is of a group of Sanderlings in flight with surf in the background. I shot it using the panning technique with Al Servo focusing, thus trying my best to keep the birds in focus. It was shot at 1/100 at f20, ISO 200, focus length 300mm.