Black-tailed Godwits were not as common on
this trip as I had expected, and we only saw birds in a few locations and none
of them were that good for photography. The first was on the approach track to
the Red-throated Diver pools early in the morning, with three birds squabbling
by the roadside in the lush grass. The aggressor, the most active bird, was
colour ringed, which personally I don’t like as it’s a clear sign of human
activity. Still, as these were the first birds we had seen since arriving the
previous evening we could not resist pointing our lenses at them. I’ve included
a couple of images here but I’m not really feeling the love for
them.
Far better was another roadside bird much
further north. From a distance we could tell that the background would be a
lovely deep green, with the bird perched up nicely on a grassy knoll. We crossed
our fingers that this bird would stay put as we rolled the car gently up to it.
It did, but only for long enough to get a single shot! Luckily the light was
very flat and the scene extremely neutral, so my pre-selected manual exposure
settings were basically spot on and did not require any adjustment that probably
would have cost me the shot. The simplicity of this one makes it, for me, one of
most pleasing shots from the whole trip.
The final wader I wanted to cover is of
course the Red-necked Phalarope. These are everywhere in Iceland, at sea-level
bobbing around in the surf to still pools on upland passes. Having done
relatively well with them on my last trip I really didn’t go after them much on
this one, but there were a couple of opportunities that got me a bit interested.
I am spoiled really! The best place was a still pool along the main highway as
we headed north, and had three pairs that drifted quite close to us. Other
locations did not really provide much joy but we were not looking that
hard.
So that concludes the waders for the trip. I
will definitely be going back!
No comments:
Post a Comment