ML33734041
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Adult, Unknown sex - X
Media notes
This is the only photo in my set that shows enough light on the side of the bird's head that one can see a very important discriminative characteristic of this species: The eye is decidedly "football-shaped" (American style football); some say "almond-shaped," but for that to be true, the eye would have to be far more rounded on one end than the other, so such a description is imprecise. Also shown here is another characteristic present in adult Ruffs in breeding plumage, namely boldly barred tertials. These are visible, albeit not very well, in more than one of the photos herewith; light angle was not optimal for showing them in the photos where they were potentially most visible. A very broad one is easily visible in this photo. Finally, as may be noticed in several of the photos herewith, including this one, the head of the Ruff has a somewhat flattened appearance, which perhaps accents the vertically flatted (see above) shape of the eye. In many individuals of this species (but not clearly shown in the bird in these photos) the flattened appearance of both the eye and the head may be perceptually flattened by a line of relatively dark feathering that extends outward from both the inner and outer canthi (i.e., ends) of the eye. This eye line is an important feature to look for because it often is visible and can be another easily visible feature that can heighten the certainty that one has at hand a Ruff, at least if other discriminative features also are present. This eye line is often, but not always, visible in photo of this species. There would appear to be a hint of it at the rear of this bird's eye in the present photo. A better-focused photo might have made it clearer.
Observation details
The several photos of the Ruff (in some cases, shown with one or two Lesser Yellowlegs) that are provided herewith were taken by using a digital SLR camera with a 50mm lens attached (focus set to infinity) to shoot through a 30X spotting scope. That scope's focus knob was the basis of visually focusing the image, and that focusing was done before the camera lens was placed and hand-held against the scope's eyepiece. The focus of each image is somewhat "soft" because of difficulties in doing digiscoping with a high-powered scope and a camera hand-held up to that scope and there being pressure on the camera each time a shot was triggered (i.e., a remote trigger was not used). The order of viewing these photos is not highly important. Reading the commentary accompanying each photo can be helpful in understanding what is shown there, including its importance for judging species and, potentially, sex of the Ruff. Some birders use the term "Ruff" to refer to the male of the species (Calidris pugnax) and the term "Reeve" to designate females of that species. Please note that in this report the term "Ruff" will be used as the English (nonscientific) species name with no implication that the bird shown in these photos is a male. Discussion of judgments related to sex (or gender) of this Ruff will be provided in association with some of the photos.
Technical information
- Model
- Canon EOS 10D
- ISO
- 400
- Focal length
- 1.7 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/0.8
- Shutter speed
- 2840174003/1366646823 sec
- Dimensions
- 1446 pixels x 1084 pixels
- Original file size
- 284.77 KB