![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/snowy-egret-0656-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-0656-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nAll fighting birds are difficult to photograph well but fighting Snowy Egrets are harder than most.<\/p>\n
Four days ago, on the morning Farmington Bay WMA opened up again for the season, I ended up spending most of my time with Snowy Egrets. They were feeling unusually feisty, even for Snowy Egrets, so my primary goal was to get some decent fighting shots.<\/p>\n
Easier said than done.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When one egret would launch to attack another one not far away there was often only one bird in the frame. To me it isn’t a fighting shot if you can’t see both birds involved.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/snowy-egret-0645-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-0645-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
The same thing was true with several interesting threat postures I captured. I really like this pose but the egret the threat is directed at is out of frame to the right so you can’t be sure if it’s a threat posture or if the bird has just landed (I believe the former is true).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/snowy-egret-0200-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-0200-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
But the biggest problem is getting both birds in the frame without clipping any body parts and getting both of them sharp. This photo is uncropped but even so both participants have amputated body parts and the bird in the foreground is soft..<\/p>\n
I was firing a burst when I took this photo and in the next shot I took…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/snowy-egret-0201-full-frame-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-0201-full-frame-ron-dudley.\\"")
<\/p>\n
I got the bird in the background sharp but very little of its antagonist was in the frame. To me this isn’t an acceptable fighting shot so the only option I had with it was to…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/snowy-egret-0201-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-0201-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
crop the photo to feature only the egret that was fully in frame. But cropping this way you’d never know there was any skirmishing involved. It just looks like a normal, everyday takeoff shot.<\/p>\n
Things like this happened again and again that morning. Only rarely did I get any photos that I considered successful fighting shots. The following series of three consecutive photos in a burst is about as close as I came.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/snnowy-egret-0663-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-0663-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
The egret at bottom was minding its own business when the incoming bird appeared at the top of the frame so I laid in my shutter button and got three photos with no body parts clipped and both birds acceptably sharp.<\/p>\n
I really like the way the incoming bird’s primary feathers have been ruffled in two directions, up and down.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/snowy-egret-0664-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-0664-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
In this shot the posture of the bird at bottom suggests that I captured the precise moment when it was trying to decide if it should fight or flee.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/snowy-egret-0665-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-0665-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
It decided to stand its ground. This may be my favorite of the three photos but I think all of them succeeded to some degree.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So, in my introduction I said that all species of birds are difficult to photograph well when they’re fighting but Snowy Egrets are more challenging than most. What makes Snowy Egrets so hard?<\/p>\n
It’s their incredibly tough exposure! Virtually every feather on their body is pure white – not just plain old white but glaring bright white. They’re called Snowy<\/em> Egrets for good reason. Avoiding blowing out those whites is hard enough but getting any detail in them is even more difficult. It hurts, it really does, to get an otherwise spectacular action shot but the whites are so poorly exposed I have no real option but to trash the photo.<\/p>\n That my friends is what it’s like to try to photograph fighting Snowy Egrets. But damn, is it ever fun..<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All fighting birds are difficult to photograph well but fighting Snowy Egrets are harder than most.\u00a0<\/p>\n