ML30551661
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult, Unknown sex - X
Media notes
This photo again reveals the widely ruddy body coloration of this bill. It also show that the head of this godwit is quite narrow (i.e., looks laterally compressed). It also shows this individual in a one-legged stance, which often was seen when it was not foraging. A one-legged stance during loafing/sleeping is, of course, not unique to this species, but I have included it here because that is how one is very likely to see this species if it is not actively foraging or engaged in some kind of walking-related activity.
Observation details
This individual was noticed and recognized as a godwit species early in our visit. I also recognized that any godwit species appearing at this time would be exceptional, so I immediately put my head and camera into documentation mode, taking as many and as diverse photos and as I could. We considered more than one species of godwit, and although it looked more like Marbled, the bird was quite distant and, worse by far, (a) the sun was beaming only a bit off from the direction of our regard of this godwit; and (b) this caused much of the bird to be strongly shadowed. I felt the need for multiple photos of the bird under these circumstances to be sure of species. I have supplied herewith four of my better photos of it, such as they are, along with some commentary on each. All four were taken with a zoom telephoto lens that provided 20X magnification. Each also was cropped from the full frame. The photographically low quality of these photos is due in considerable part to the fact that they were taken of a distant bird under poor lighting (somewhat backlighted) conditions. Also, all of my photos of this distant bird were taken when I was trying to steady my camera in strong wind as it simply sat across the barrel of my scope, which was locked in place. I do not have a tripod for my camera, which provides high magnification, so this is how I sometimes have to improvise in using it.
Technical information
- Model
- COOLPIX P520
- ISO
- 800
- Focal length
- 180 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire, auto
- f-stop
- f/8.3
- Shutter speed
- 1/2500 sec
- Dimensions
- 1255 pixels x 897 pixels
- Original file size
- 219.22 KB