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| TITLE: | Two Coots fighting
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| INFO: | "Late May and fairly calm water in the bay in front of Goosander Hide, especially early on but, frustratingly, very little on the water close enough to photograph....
The Sand Martins were still busy bringing in nesting material to the nestholes in the wall and it's always nice just watching them zoom around but, as the morning wore on with the light direction becoming less good, I and the other two or three photographers in the hide were beginning to dispair of getting shots of anything on the water when several Coots that had been mooching around far to the right/north of the hide began moving in closer. As they had been having quite frequent fights earlier there was the hope that a couple of them might do so closer in for better photography. Sure enough, after just a few minutes of being closer in, a couple of the Coots squared up to each other and the fight was on! I'd seen Coot sit-up feet-kicking fights often enough before but always too far away for good photography and have always wanted to get a decent shot of this action which showed the kicking feet clearly - this image is about the best I've managed so far at any location, with the high-kicking over-sized foot of one of the birds showing well as they each try to push the other down under the water. Such fights can go on for a couple of minutes or can be over almost before they start, so one has to get the camera on to the action quickly - this fight lasted only about ten seconds from start to finish. The action is fast and frenetic, with a lot of confusing flapping and splashing, so I tried to time my shutter bursts between the more splashy bits and when the birds appeared side-on - and especially when I glimpsed those huge feet kicking up! At the time it seemed like I was rattling off dozens of shots but, in the ten seconds of action, I actually took only fourteen shots." May 2012 (Goosander Hide) |
| TECH: | Nikon D700, Nikkor 200-400mm f4 zoom lens at 400mm with 1.4x teleconverter, ISO 1000, f8, 1/2000 sec.
Hide shelf platform with ball head. Cropped image about 50% of frame from full-frame FX format image. |
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