birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

I spent most of the day Tuesday at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge hoping to see and photograph some migrants. The Hook is on Delaware Bay near Dover Delaware and consists of Salt water estuaries and brackish water impoundments. I arrived at high tide, mid-morning, on a day that got into the 80’s with just some thin high clouds. Some of the shorebirds had returned: mostly Dunlin, American Avocets, and both Yellowlegs species. As the tide receded, the shorebirds began feeding along the edge of the water but they were generally not close enough for good photos.
At refuges like this one with brackish impoundments, I look to see what may be feeding at the outlets connecting the salt water side and discovered about 9 or 10 Snowy Egrets feeding on minnow sized fish at one of them. I was able to get very close to them by using a technique where you approach very slowly and quietly. You take two or three steps and then stop to allow the birds to get used to your presence. You wait, watching the birds to see what their reaction is. If they move away, you back off a little. If they return to feeding, you move in 2 or 3 steps and stop. You repeat this process until you are as close as you think you can get. It took me about 30 minutes to get to where I wanted to be. I keep my camera up close to my chest so that when I need to take pictures, I don’t have to make large movements. Slow and steady! This technique works with a variety of species but is quite variable. Juvenile birds seem to be the most susceptible as they are naturally curious and haven’t yet developed the caution of adult birds. (After I wrote this, I saw that MTShooter had posted his method for getting close to animals. We agree on most of the major points. Hats off to him!)
I had bright sun and I typically shoot manual exposure set at an equivalent of the sunny 16 rule, ISO 800, f/8 at 1/2000. In this case, I had to adjust my settings to keep the white birds from getting overexposed. I needed about a stop and a half less exposure and is the reason that the water appears so dark. That’s the trade off you make to get detail in the white feathers. With the Red-winged Blackbird it was the other way around. I had to increase exposure. Please note, that if you are metering, the adjustments you need to make are the opposite of what I had to do here. If you meter off a white bird, the camera will turn it into middle gray so you need to increase exposure to get it right. Confused? Yes, this is a skill every photographer must develop: the ability to recognize when your light meter will be incorrect and know how to adjust exposure whether it is a white bird a snow scene, a brides dress or a black tuxedo.
The Snowy Egret photos were taken with my Canon 7D and the 100-400 f/ 4.5-5.6 L lens. All others were taken with my 500 mm f/4 and the 1.4 teleconverter. The light got better and better as the afternoon wore on, getting warmer in tone and filling in the shadows with reflected light.
As a post script: After I had selected the shots that I wanted to post, I had to shut down due to an approaching thunderstorm. When I returned, I found out that my hard drive had crashed! I’m not sure it was the storm. In any event, I HAD EVERYTHING BACKED UP!!!! The only thing I lost were my edits to this shoot. Let that be a lesson to all of you who haven’t backed up recently!

gwong1 Loc: Tampa, FL

Very nice, I like #1 the best. Gary

CanonShot Loc: Lancaster County, PA

Thank you for the bird approach and manual info, Ed. So right you are about the back up. Do you also back up off site? Your pix always seem to have the interest component.
-mike

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

Thanks, Gary!

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

Mike, Thanks for the kind words.

No, I don't do off site backup. What I have is a series of 3 external hard drives. I use Lightroom to Post Process and I have one external drive, Call it drive "1" assigned to making a copy of everything I download to my computer as it is being imported. LR makes this easy with the "Make A Second Copy To:" setting. That means that, right off the bat, I have two copies of my files and I can then reuse my camera cards. Every other Sunday night I make a backup to another external hard drive that includes my photo library, Lightroom Catalogue and LR previews files. Let's call that Drive "2". On the alternate Sundays, I back up to drive "3". Periodically, I can purge the files that have been backed up to drives 2 and 3 from that drive 1. Drive 1 is a smaller drive that only needs to hold a few weeks worth of pictures. Drives 2 and 3 are 2 TB drives. The result is that I will have a minimum of 2 and usually 3 copies of my work.

As to the interest part, I use the philosophy of Jay Maisel, NY street photographer, who recommends that you look for the "gesture". He's talking about people but birds make gestures, too! It isn't always the spectacular fight scene. Sometimes it is just the way a bird cocks its head that makes the shot different. Do I always succeed? NAH! But it is fun trying!

jrb1213 Loc: McDonough GEorgia

Love 2, the bird is stomping its feet!

BigBear Loc: Northern CT

Super shooting !!!
Love them ... :thumbup:

hondo Loc: sharon hill . pa .

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: your photos are simply beautiful .. tack sharp..
great stuff .. thank you ..

photophile Loc: Lakewood, Ohio, USA

I enjoyed the positions you caught the egrets in and your advice on how to preserve the details on both white and black birds.

oldmalky Loc: West Midlands,England.

you have hit the nail on the head once again and my personal favourite number 2 although i enjoyed them all.