![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/american-avocet-1500-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"american-avocet-1500-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nI can thank Elephant’s Child for the inspiration for today’s post.<\/p>\n
I’ve posted this photo once\u00a0before,\u00a0just about seven\u00a0years ago on January 7, 2012, so it was long enough ago that not many current blog followers have seen it and since I had few readers back then it didn’t get many comments. But one of those comments was from long-time blog follower Elephant’s Child who said of the image “it looks like an avocet sandwich”. I happened to stumble on that original post last night and reading\u00a0EC’s comment again reminded me of how much I’d wished back then I’d thought to use her line in my title.<\/p>\n
Today I succumbed to the\u00a0temptation.<\/p>\n
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1\/1250, f\/10, ISO 400, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I’d been photographing four males fighting over a single female (sexes are fairly easily identifiable because the female has a shorter and more strongly recurved bill than the male) when this male lifted off and attacked two other males just out of frame to the right.\u00a0I just happened to catch the male in a good position over the female with reflections I like.\u00a0One of the things that\u00a0made the shot work is that I had enough light to use f\/10 to increase my depth of field and\u00a0still have\u00a0sufficient shutter speed (just barely) to get both birds sharp enough.<\/p>\n The image obviously has some issues including the cluttered and unattractive\u00a0background and the bright specular highlights on the leg reflection at bottom but I still like it for its uniqueness. My timing was just about perfect to get the “sandwich” effect, the calm water provided nice reflections and the birds and their reflections were well separated from each other.<\/p>\n And I think the calm, coy pose from the female in all the excitement of the fighting males says a lot about “the games we play” during courtship, no matter the species.<\/p>\n So thanks again, EC – you do have a way with words.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I can thank Elephant’s Child for the inspiration for today’s post.<\/p>\n