Well...I had to get out one more time before sending my lens off to Melville and it's performance pretty much sucked. I finally put it into release mode and manually tweaked these shots and I'm darn pleased with them.
The lighting was extremely varied as you'll see from the shots as it was cloudy / sunny and changeable literally within seconds. It made for some interesting color in some of the sand as you'll see. This area has a very fine purple sand that comes to the surface when the wind was blowing...and it was howling the entire time.....as in all day. If you look closely in some of the shots, you can actually see the sand particles swirling around.
Ready? This will take a couple of minutes....(I'd apologize for posting so many images at once but I might as well get this out of the way)
(Before I get chastised for getting so close to this nest...a lady darn near stepped on these and I planted my butt 15' away while my wife went and got one of the rangers so we could show them the nest and they marked it with flags as I couldn't bear the thought of anyone squashing them.) Interestingly, these birds seem very comfortable with me???
All images were with a D2X / malfunctioning 500 AFSII both with and without a TC14EII converter...on a tripod of course.
Eggs:
Mom getting coming back to the eggs:
A parent from an early brood keeping watch as the little ones were out and about. These birds are extremely attentive and protective as there are foxes paroling the area in the early morning and royal terns and great black back gulls trying to harass and probably eat the little ones
A bit of aggression when an "outsider" male gets a bit too close:
Junior taking cover when mom calls as a black backed gull is flying low and hunting:
And now.....what I really had a wonderful time shooting all morning long.....(due to the high wind, they look less sharp than they would have...the little fuzz balls were really blowing around)
View attachment 48727
The lighting was extremely varied as you'll see from the shots as it was cloudy / sunny and changeable literally within seconds. It made for some interesting color in some of the sand as you'll see. This area has a very fine purple sand that comes to the surface when the wind was blowing...and it was howling the entire time.....as in all day. If you look closely in some of the shots, you can actually see the sand particles swirling around.
Ready? This will take a couple of minutes....(I'd apologize for posting so many images at once but I might as well get this out of the way)
(Before I get chastised for getting so close to this nest...a lady darn near stepped on these and I planted my butt 15' away while my wife went and got one of the rangers so we could show them the nest and they marked it with flags as I couldn't bear the thought of anyone squashing them.) Interestingly, these birds seem very comfortable with me???
All images were with a D2X / malfunctioning 500 AFSII both with and without a TC14EII converter...on a tripod of course.
Eggs:
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Mom getting coming back to the eggs:
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A parent from an early brood keeping watch as the little ones were out and about. These birds are extremely attentive and protective as there are foxes paroling the area in the early morning and royal terns and great black back gulls trying to harass and probably eat the little ones
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A bit of aggression when an "outsider" male gets a bit too close:
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Junior taking cover when mom calls as a black backed gull is flying low and hunting:
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And now.....what I really had a wonderful time shooting all morning long.....(due to the high wind, they look less sharp than they would have...the little fuzz balls were really blowing around)
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View attachment 48727
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