![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/forsters-tern-8912-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"forsters-tern-8912-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nA couple of flight postures I doubt I’ll ever see again. Almost certainly I’ll never photograph them again.<\/p>\n
Yesterday morning at Bear River MBA I spent much of my time attempting to get interesting photos of Forster’s Terns in flight and diving on fish. But I had a hard time getting the sun directly behind me and the bird at the right angle at the same time, so their notorious “photon trap”, the black cap that also surrounds their black eyes, usually prevented me from getting a catch light in their eye. As a result, a lot of my photos that were otherwise pretty damn good will end up in the trash heap.<\/p>\n
But I got a few I like and these are two of them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1\/5000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Explaining how this flight posture came to be will be a challenge but I’ll give it my best shot.<\/p>\n When these terns spot prey (usually a small fish) in the water below them their acrobatic turns and dives are a photographer’s nightmare to capture. This bird had been flying away from me and slightly to my right so I was tracking ‘him’ with my lens but not taking photos. I don’t need any more butt shots.<\/p>\n But I fired off a quick burst when he spotted a fish in the water to his right and slightly behind him, which caused him to instantly apply his air brakes by turning 90\u00b0 to his right and tipping his body clockwise 90\u00b0 (see the next photo) at the same time, which put him broadside to the direction he’d been going. This flight posture allowed him to stop his forward motion, quickly change direction and go after the fish which was out of frame to the lower right and a little behind him.<\/p>\n The horizon line at the top of the frame is the interface between far away mountains and the sky, which shows that I was aiming my lens straight forward (horizontally and level), not up.<\/p>\n I love this flight posture but…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/6400, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I might like the next photo in the burst even more.<\/p>\n Here his topsy turvy body has turned 90\u00b0 or more in two dimensions and he’s looking directly at the fish below him and to our right. This action was fast and furious so needless to say, the next shot in the burst was soft. After that he’d zoomed out of frame.<\/p>\n I have no idea if he caught the fish but I got the photos so I’m a happy photographer.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note: <\/em><\/p>\n Forster’s Terns eat mostly fish but after many dives on prey I never saw one with a fish. Not a single time, which I thought was highly unusual. In one photo I could see what looked like a tiny arthropod in the tern’s bill (it definitely wasn’t a fish). Cornell’s Birds of the World says Forster’s Terns eat “primarily small (1-10 cm length) fish, some arthropods” so it may be that many or all of the terns I was photographing were feeding on arthropods instead of fish.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A couple of flight postures I doubt I’ll ever see again. Almost certainly I’ll never photograph them again. (2 photos)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/forsters-tern-8913-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"forsters-tern-8913-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n