Shorebirds

[loose cannon]

No shortage of shorebirds at present

[Alan]

Excellent Mick. Beautiful composition and use of the long lens.

You still have the airborne birds and a lot of the grounded birds in the same focal plane. The oof waves make a great and typical b/g

So what are they?

[sejac]

That's one great shot Mick. Especially love the background light and colors of the sea against the birds. Visual poetry.

Those OOF foreground birds worry me a bit. Something of a compositional distraction perhaps. Crop at bottom edge a bit tight?

Maybe I'm just getting old and hard to please. I am a notorious dauche bag in a number of circles, as you well know.

[loose cannon]

Excellent Mick. Beautiful composition and use of the long lens.

You still have the airborne birds and a lot of the grounded birds in the same focal plane. The oof waves make a great and typical b/g

So what are they?

Cheers Alan. Huge amounts of luck involved in getting lots of birds in the same focal plane but they don't have much beach to land on so this increases the odds in my favour a little. They tend to bunch up as they approach the shore.

As for ID's, well, I'm struggling with shorebirds. Mainly Bar-tailed Godwits, they have the long pink/black beaks but after that I'm lost. I do spend some time trying to ID them but it becomes frustrating at times. Tiny differences between many of the shorebirds makes it a specialist task in most cases. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

That's one great shot Mick. Especially love the background light and colors of the sea against the birds. Visual poetry.

Those OOF foreground birds worry me a bit. Something of a compositional distraction perhaps. Crop at bottom edge a bit tight?

Maybe I'm just getting old and hard to please. I am a notorious dauche bag in a number of circles, as you well know.

Thank you Charles. The OOF birds bother me too but it's hard to get past them I'm afraid. The closer I sneak in the more I reduce the DOF available to me and I'm starting to think it might be advantageous to shoot from further back and crop.

Dunno really, still working it out as I don't often have an opportunity to capture a large flock of birds and all the rules change. I can understand why some folks buy point and shoot cameras!

This long lens stuff does my head in at times, but that is hardly surprising. If you knew my head like I know my head you would understand, lots of weird and confusing things rattling around all over the place in there and they want me to do maths!! Not gunna happen.

Being hard to please should be viewed as a plus Charles otherwise this photography lark becomes all too easy and we don't want that do we.

Hang on a bit...let me think about that a little more.

Oh, and I wear my particular brand of notorious dauchbaggery reputation like a badge of honour, welcome to the club.

[Sully]

I like this. The 'flying' birds to me are the main focal point/s and they are in focus. Perhaps on PS (don't know because I don't have it) the foreground birds can be blurred into oblivion.

[P Plates]

Great shot Mick. The blurred birds in the foreground don't worry me. In this I found my eyes going straight to the birds in flight and then moving down and they help keep the eyes in the frame. Love the colours of the ocean in the background. You're so lucky, the only shore birds we get are the common seagull.

[Earthmother]

Great shot Mick.
I see the Godwits, Just wondered if some of them were perhaps Common Greenshanks?

[loose cannon]

Thanks for the comments folks. And yes Jess, there could be some Common Greenshanks in there.

[seaslug]

Ripper!

[loose cannon]

Thanks Seaslug

[kevinj]

Another great shot,your setting the Bar pretty high for the rest of us.