{"id":131855,"date":"2023-03-11T04:51:32","date_gmt":"2023-03-11T11:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=131855"},"modified":"2023-03-11T13:04:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-11T20:04:30","slug":"redhead-diving-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/11\/redhead-diving-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Redhead Diving Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

A behavior that isn’t easy to photograph well in an extended series.<\/p>\n

On occasion I like to photograph diving waterfowl in an attempt to capture an extended series of the behavior. I like seeing the progression of the photos in sequence, I enjoy the considerable challenge of doing it well and it’s good training for the ol’ reflexes. Two days ago I had such an opportunity with a particularly handsome and up-close Redhead drake so I accepted the challenge.<\/p>\n

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I played cat and mouse with him for quite a while as he was feeding (long enough for me to take 658 photos) and I got quite a few diving sequences but in most of them he wasn’t broadside to me or I had less than ideal light on his face and eye. This is the series I liked best.<\/p>\n

The first ten photos are presented in the order they were taken and there are no skips.<\/p>\n

One major challenge is anticipating their dive. Because it happens so fast it’s very easy to miss its beginnings or fire off way too many shots before it starts. I’ve learned to watch for this blank forward stare as a signal that they’re thinking about diving but the amount of time they hold the stare is highly variable so you can sometimes waste many dozens of shots before the dive actually begins.<\/p>\n

When that happens I always feel faked out so I’ve learned to look for something else (it’s subtle) before I begin firing off a burst.<\/p>\n

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What I look for is this slight vertical extension of their neck and head at the very beginning of the dive. If you compare this shot to the previous one it should be noticeable, but just barely.<\/p>\n

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When I see it beginning to happen my burst begins.<\/p>\n

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One of the reasons I liked this series over the others I got is that I caught him just as the tip of his bill was beginning to enter the water. For some reason that’s always a goal of mine in diving sequences.<\/p>\n

You’ll notice that he’s beginning to close his nictitating membrane. I get the impression that they close their membranes just prior to impact with the water and then open them again underwater while they’re looking for food.<\/p>\n

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I like the arch of his body and the depression in the water directly behind him.<\/p>\n

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Surface tension and vacuum sure pulls…<\/p>\n

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a lot of water above the surface.<\/p>\n

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Beginning to disappear beneath the surface.<\/p>\n

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But he’s not gone yet. We still see the very tip of his tail.<\/p>\n

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Now he’s gone. Even though there’s no portion of a bird to be seen in a shot like this I’m weird enough to like seeing the water splash where he disappeared and the depression in the water where his body had been just prior to the dive.<\/p>\n

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When he’d come up from feeding he often looked like a bovine chewing its cud, in part because of the slightly sideways alternate movement of his upper and lower mandibles as he manipulated his food. I guess for me it’s a yin and yang type of thing.<\/p>\n

I may be entertained by sequences like this more than my readers are but I decided to post the series and take the chance.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A behavior that isn’t easy to photograph well in an extended series. (11 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,334,392,1243],"tags":[1940,6803,6801,6800,113,1242,311,6802],"class_list":["post-131855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-redhead-waterfowl","tag-bird-photography-technique","tag-chewing-cud","tag-closing-nictitating-membrane-while-diving","tag-diving-for-food","tag-duck","tag-redhead","tag-utah-2","tag-yin-and-yang"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/redhead-3522-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-yiH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131855"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131930,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131855\/revisions\/131930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}