Friday the 13th

Are you superstitious? Frankly I am not, but when it comes to Wildlife Photography, we had been skunked a lot lately. We had a whale watching tour from Forillon National Park and saw no whales. The operator had the policy that if you don’t see any whales and you are still in the area you could be “wait listed” for another tour. We were successful on our wait list and had the last two seats two days later. But still no whales!

We had been to a couple of “Parc Nationale” (really provincial) in Quebec and still no wildlife.

So we are near the L’Isle-Verte Migratory Bird Sanctuary looking for something to shoot. Driving through the area and stopping to look. We asked a local and he pointed to an area where we should see some American Black Ducks (Anas rubrite) which would be a first for us. So we drove to the car park for the trail and cautiously started the trail. The first thing we learnt was that these ducks were hyper-sensitive and all we saw was their departing rears.

However, we did spot some shorebirds, always one of my delights, and started working a threesome of Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca).

Then, on a narrow, weedy, low bar into the marsh there were some other shorebirds.

At first I could not identify the birds, but probably a sandpiper. There were two adults and two smaller versions – their young. Good old Sibley’s on the iPhone soon let us know that we were looking at Pectoral Sandpipers (Calidris melanomas) for the first time! And right next to them was a Wilson’s Snipe (Galliago delicate).

It is always good to see a new species, but it is always a thrill to see a snipe!

Then Louise, my spotter, said that there were more birds just to the right of the group I was working. So I swung the camera round and yes, there was a group of three Wilson’s Snipes. So we think we were looking at two adult and two young snipes. Even thinking about it now is thrilling!

My first snipe was a Common Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) in Churchill, Manitoba while on a workshop with Moose Peterson. He said that it was only the second time in his career that he had got glass on a Common Snipe. During the visit the sound of the wingbeats drove Louise crazy as she knew where the sound was coming from but could not see the snipe! So the snipes are always special to Louise and me.

So in the end, what a Friday the 13th we had!

Gear: Nikon D4s, Nikkor 600mm f/4 VRII, Nikkor TC-17 EII, Nikon GP-1, RRS TVC-34L, RRS Full Gimbal Head, Lexar Digital Film

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 26th, 2019 at 1:37 pm. It is filed under Birds, Color Images, Shorebirds, Wildlife and tagged with American Black Duck (Anas rubripe), Birding, Canada, Ducks, Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca), Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos), QC, Quebec, Richard King Photography, shorebirds, wildlife photography, Wilsons Snipe (Gallinago delicata), www.fulltimervingwiththekings.com, www.mothernatureimages.com, www.richardkingphoto.com. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.