Over the weekend we went to Watermead park again. Fortunately my back was hurting and I was forced to sit on a park bench at the end of one of the lakes.
I say fortunately because at some distance down the lake, in an area that is inaccessible to people, I saw some movement in the reeds at the edge of the water. I wasn't sure what it was, but at that distance it looked like something big, so I took the camera out and focussed on the movement.
What I saw was not something big but two Great Crested Grebe neck dancing. I've seen that many times, but I kept the camera on them in the hope that it would turn into the mating dance.
Then the male started to swim away with his neck stretched out as though he was chasing something under water. Soon I realised that the female was coming towards him from further out in the lake, she must have swum out under water and that was what he had been chasing.
Then something I've never seen live and always wanted to photograph started - the mating dance. It doesn't last long and I kept my finger on the shutter getting the whole thing in camera.
I have to apologise for the quality of the pictures this all happened at the extreme end of the lens range, to give an idea these pics are actually around on sixteenth of the total picture area, without the camera I could only see movement - not what was making it.
All taken on
Canon EOS 7d, with EF 100-400mm L Lens
1/640 @ f7.1, iso 400, 400mm, 4 fps
No comments:
Post a Comment