![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/eared-grebe-9428-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"eared-grebe-9428-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nWhen it comes to my photography sometimes I think simple is best and photos don’t come much simpler than this\u00a0one.<\/p>\n
Last night while feeling a little nostalgic I\u00a0went back in my archives and reviewed some of the earliest photos I kept from when I was just beginning to get serious about bird photography. This one was taken over 10 years ago, on April 17, 2008. At that point I’d only had my first\u00a0500mm lens for a short time and I was just beginning to scratch the surface of learning\u00a0how to use it. If it tells you anything about how\u00a0long ago it was\u00a0I was using Canon’s 40D as my camera\u00a0and it was still pretty new at the time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n That morning there was a small group of Eared Grebes in breeding plumage feeding on some kind of insect hatch on the surface of Glover Pond in Farmington. Unless I was looking at the wake of one of the grebes the water was perfectly flat and as reflective as a mirror. The location of the\u00a0insects kept them close to me\u00a0so I had a photographic\u00a0blast with them for quite a while as they skittered across the water chasing bugs but I caught this one in a quiet moment. I don’t remember how many photos I took but it was a bunch (I’ve posted a couple of them before but this one is new to my blog).<\/p>\n I like the reflection, the breeding colors of the grebe and that bright red almost almond-shaped eye (apparently they’re always that shape in this species instead of round). I also appreciate the\u00a0nearly perfectly smooth and clean water surface that allowed such an elegant reflection (I didn’t clone out any dark spots).<\/p>\n No, it wasn’t really swimming on a mirror but I sure think it looks like it was.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n Addendum: Soon after I published this post I decided to include a second photo showing one of the grebes when there was a little more excitement going on. Here the bird has chased across the water in order to snag one of the floating insects (mosquitos?). They were real speedsters as the birds competed with other grebes for the bugs so it was excellent tracking practice for this neophyte bird\u00a0photographer.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When it comes to my photography sometimes I think simple is best and photos don’t come much simpler than this one.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/eared-grebe-8049b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n