1\/640, f\/13, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 II Extender<\/em><\/p>\nThis was the scene at the carcass it was approaching. There were often\u00a0several harriers fighting over the Mallard with others on the ice\u00a0nearby or flying closely around them. The harrier in the first image apparently chickened out and veered off at the last second and I can understand why. I’ve occasionally seen harriers fighting over food over the years but these battles were like nothing I’d\u00a0witnessed before or since. I’ve posted other images of the fights in the past\u00a0but I\u00a0believe\u00a0these two are new to my blog.<\/p>\n
I’m sure photographers will notice obvious mistakes in my settings. Almost nine years ago I was still a neophyte bird\u00a0photographer and I had no business being at f\/13 (or even\u00a0ISO 500 for that matter), especially in these partially overcast conditions.\u00a0In my naivet\u00e9 I chose\u00a0f\/13\u00a0to give me enough depth of field to get multiple birds sharp but that gave me ridiculously slow shutter speeds for this kind of fast\u00a0action so sharpness is an obvious issue with one of the birds in the last shot.<\/p>\n
This\u00a0was one of\u00a0my early\u00a0experiences that taught me to err on the side of too much shutter speed rather than too little – higher ISO’s and slightly increased noise be damned.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
Late Addendum on 5-27-17 @ 5:45 PM: Today I learned that there’s a strong possibility that these harriers were baited. The\u00a0Mallard may have been moved to a “better” place on the ice for photography\u00a0by another photographer who is well known for baiting raptors\u00a0and he was there while I was photographing these harriers so it’s very possible (I’ve personally seen him baiting raptors several times and he was on the scene before I was).\u00a0Later that\u00a0same photographer\u00a0actually pulled an unethical and blatantly dishonest stunt with one of his images of these birds\u00a0that was taken during this same session so this kind of behavior is typical of his modus operandi.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nSo, I’ve removed my\u00a0usual “not baited, set up or called in” line from my image techs under each photo. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fighting harriers are both exciting and challenging to photograph – especially for neophyte bird photographers.<\/p>\n
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