American-Black Scoter Update

In an earlier blog, I had talked about the American-Black Scoters http://photobee1.blogspot.com/2012/07/black-american-scoter-melanitta.html.  Presently, there are around 4 to 6 female, black scoters still present At Gooseberry Neck in Westport, Massachusetts.  The scoters are allowing close approach to within 25 to 30 feet, which gives you a good view of them, plus a good opportunity for photography.
This first set of pictures were taken at  sunset and afterwards (it was extremely foggy and there was no Sun present) and into the hour after sunset.  Since my main intention this evening was to photograph the sunset I did not bring my flash with me and left it at home on the counter.  My Nikon D800 was set at ISO 4000 and I was able to obtain very decent photographs.

Black and White Conversion

This set of pictures were taken in the morning, the first ones with the scoters on the rocks was taken just prior to sunrise (still foggy), and the last ones were taken with the Sun present.  I did use fill flash with the better Beamer on my flash, so that I could project the flash out to where the birds were and since I was using my 500 mm lens with 1.4 X converter attached to the lens.