billmajoros.com


Florida Safari 2009
Page 9

<< PREVIOUS PAGE          NEXT PAGE >>



Skip to page: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |





March 6
Friday
1422 photos
Today was fairly unproductive, partly due to my having caught a very, very bad cold, and partly due to the cloudy weather and the relative lack of bird activity.  I got to the pier on Sanibel fairly late in the morning.  The Pelicans weren’t diving close to shore as they had been doing yesterday.  Some were diving about a mile or so offshore (too far to photograph), while a small group of others were hanging around the pier, just floating around like ducks.  However, occasionally one would spot a fish or school underwater not far away and perform what I call a "lazy dive": rather than rising to a considerable height in the air and then performing one of the spectacular dives I had witnessed many times yesterday, the bird would lazily flap its wings just enough to rise a few feet above the water and then perform an abbreviated dive into the water, head-first, with most of the bird remaining above water throughout the dive.

Though much less impressive to watch, the fact that the birds were doing this so close to shore (closer than they had been diving yesterday) meant that there was the opportunity for getting some closer-up shots of the birds in action:


Pelican in "Lazy Dive".
600mm at f/4.  1/3200 at ISO 1250.
No flash.


The above image is noteworthy for two reasons: (1) it was shot wide open, at f/4, and (2) it was shot at ISO 1250.  In terms of the latter fact (the ISO setting), this shows that Canon’s recent pro cameras (and undoubtedly Nikon’s, too) are capable of producing images with exceptionally low noise at fairly high ISO’s.  I almost never take my Mark III any higher than ISO 1250, and I rarely venture above ISO 800, but it’s scary to think what the next generation of pro bodies will be capable of. 

The fact that the above image was taken at f/4 is interesting for two reasons. First, most lenses are sharpest at 1 or 2 stops below their maximum aperture, so it’s remarkable to see a sharp image produced at full aperture.  Canon’s L-series lenses are reputed to be exceptional in this regard, though I’ve remained skeptical on this point.  Second, with the exception of the proximal portion of the bird’s beak, you can see that virtually the entire animal is in focus, despite the fact that such a wide aperture (f/4) should produce a relatively narrow depth-of-field (DOF).  The answer to the latter conundrum is that DOF increases with distance to subject (as I
ve mentioned several times already).  This is why a pelican at 50 feet can be almost entirely in focus at f/4, while a shot of a sanderling at 18 feet can feature fully out-of-focus foreground and background at f/8.

Shooting eye-level shots on my belly at the edge of the ocean was a bit different from doing the same at the edge of a tidepool or stagnant pond.  In addition to having to worry about getting soaked by the occasional far-reaching wave on shore (and possibly ruining my camera or lens in the process as I did my iPhone last week), I had to time my shots to coincide with the pattern of water around the bird.  Getting the bird while it was cresting a wave, without another wave partially occluding the bird, and with the bird facing my general direction, proved a bit tricky:



Pelican Cresting a Wave off Sanibel.
600mm at f/5.  1/1000 at ISO 800.
Flash on high-speed sync at full power (+3).


I had the opportunity to get a rather closer view of a pelican today than I expected.  One of the birds got tangled in the fishermens’ lines, and got a hook embedded in its flesh.  The fishermen lured the bird in closer to shore and then caught it so they could remove the hook.  While two of them held the bird I aided in untangling the bird and inspecting its wound after one of the others removed the hook.  There were just a few drops of blood and no real tearing of flesh around the tiny puncture wound, so the fishermen declared the bird "fine" and released it.  I followed the bird by eye for a bit to make sure it didn’t show any signs of injury or discomfort, but it did indeed seem "fine", and resumed its lazy diving close by:



Brown Pelican on Sanibel.
600mm at f/5.  1/1000 at ISO 800.
Flash on high-speed sync at full power (+3).


Though the egrets were present again today (on and off), there was much less activity, in terms of either interactions or foraging.  I decided to try for some portrait shots on the beach, hoping for some novel backgrounds resulting from the dimly lit ocean:




Snowy Egret at the Fishermens’ Pier on Sanibel.
600mm at f/8.  1/640 sec at ISO 400.
Fill flash on high-speed sync at full power (+3).


I soon tired of that, but then discovered another source of background color.  Whenever a pedestrian approached, I carefully positioned myself to put the bird directly between me and that person.  As you can see, the skinny white bird stood out starkly from the human behind it:




 600mm at f/10.  1/500 sec at ISO 100. 
No flash.


In late afternoon a pair of terns started fishing near shore by the pier.  With the skies completely overcast, I once again found myself shooting a white bird in front of a nearly-white background.  Just keeping the very fast-moving bird in focus was challenging, though my 1D Mark III (a model reputed to have trouble tracking fast-moving subjects) fared relatively well against this task:



Tern in Flight at Sanibel.
600mm at f/7.1.  1/800 at ISO 500.
No flash.


The blurriness in this next photo (below) was due not to a faulty autofocus module in my camera, but due to a faulty photographer
I obviously needed a faster shutter speed than 1/800 sec to freeze the interaction between these two amorous terns:



Tern Biting Tern.
600mm at f/8.  1/800 sec at ISO 500.
No flash.


I was glad too see, however, that I (and the Mark III’s autofocus) nailed the one below
those are the tips of a tern’s wings at full plunge, and at 1/1600 sec the splash was well-frozen:



Tern Impersonating a Submarine.
600mm at f/10.  1/1600mm at ISO 500.
No flash.

I should note that the camera didn’t always stay on target with the plunging terns.  Often, the AF would switch to the water behind the bird as the bird got close to hitting the water.  I had to play with the settings to get it to stay on the bird during the full plunge.  Sadly, I don’t remember which settings gave me the desired behavior, though I know I tried center point versus "ring of fire" focusing, and I tried enabling and disabling the "expand with nearby focus points" option, and one of these combinations did the trick.  So, the good news is that with the proper settings the Mark III can deliver the goods, despite its long history of AF problems.

When the bird shown above emerged from the water and regained flight, it was moving so fast that I could barely tell that it had a tiny fish in its beak.  It wasn’t until weeks later, when I viewed the full image on my computer, that I realized the fish was on a "hook, line, and sinker":



Beak, Line, and Sinker.
600mm at f/10.  1/1600mm at ISO 500.
No flash.


That’s twice in one day that I observed birds interacting with hooks and fishing line.  Nylon and steel are obviously not good for birds
I’ve heard of bald eagles dying after ingesting fish embedded with hooks.  In the case of pelicans and terns, this is a good reason not to feed the birds in locations popular with fishermen, since birds are easily conditioned to congregate in areas where there’s a good chance of getting a free meal (as I saw last week on Key Largo).  The fishermen at the Sanibel pier told me they yelled at some bird photographers just last week for feeding the birds; they don’t like having the birds get tangled up in their lines any more than we birders do.  Given that the Sanibel fishing pier is specifically designated for fishing, it’s hard to argue that the fishermen should stop fishing there.  My recommendation to other birders and bird photographers is to avoid feeding the birds at popular fishing sites, for the sake of the birds’ safety.  Even without our feeding them, birds will continue to get hooked, but fishing as a recreational activity is unlikely to ever die out, so there’s little else that can be done.



Tern at Sanibel.
600mm at f/8.  1/800 sec at ISO 500.
Flash on high-speed sync at full power (+3).

By about 5pm I was exhausted
my cold was making me feel miserable, and the sparse birding opportunities were doing little to ease my discomfort.  I left early and headed to the Apple store to buy a replacement for my ruined iPhone, which I had foolishly left in my pocket while lying on my belly at Tigertail Beach...








All text and photos (C) Bill Majoros.  All rights reserved.