Weather Changes

Sanderling

Left the house yesterday morning to travel out to Horseneck Beach and Gooseberry, at which time the sun was shining.  Arriving out at Horseneck, it was partly overcast, in the distance haze could be seen.  Walking down to the beach, we observed goals and shorebirds running all over the place.  There were small waves coming in and the tide was outgoing.  We picked an area close to the waters edge and sat down and waited for the birds to come to us, rather than trying to chase them.  After a period of time we did move laterally on the beach and and picked a new area to photograph.  As we were sitting there fog started to roll in and was decreasing visibility to at one point we were less than a 10th of a mile visibility and looking across the water.  We could not even see Gooseberry Neck.  The birds.  However did not pay any attention to the fog and kept moving up and down the beach, feeding and at times, chasing one another trying to maintain their own territory.  Normally, sanderlings follow the tide coming in and out running away as its incoming and following it out as it is outgoing.  However, when one of the shorebirds decide to take a bath.  They do not seem to care about the waves, and I am more interested in cleaning themselves..  Gulls flying through the fog give you a mystical appearance like that of a ghost, white on white.

Sanderling Chase Mode

Sanderling Feeding

Sanderling Bathing

Sanderling Bathing Partly on the Water

Herring Gull in the Fog White on White

Sanderling, Looking for Food

Sanderling Bathing, before Is in the Fog and after Is from Post Processing

As the fog grew thicker, we decided to travel over to Gooseberry to observe how everything looked from that vantage point.  By the time we got to Gooseberry, the fog had completely dissipated.  And we had bright sun shining.  On one of the seaweed covered rocks that was completely exposed due to the low tide was a few ducks.  The one I wanted a photograph of was a male American Scoter (Black Scoter).  The other ducks were young eiders.  We slowly moved down to the waters edge, the eiders left the rock and swam away, but the American Scoter continue to lay on the rock and just observe us.  The orange on its beak glowed in the sun.  After changing positions to get different views of the scoter, I turned to move again and hit a wet, slippery rock and fell backwards, happily keeping my camera and lens up so it did not hit the rock, or ground.  I did get a skinned elbow.  Handing my camera to my companion, and then fell completely over got up and since I really was not injured and I did not injured my camera set.  Oh well, took some more pictures and then went to the car to brush all the sand off of me.

American (Black) Scoter

My lens hood protected the front element of my lens from getting damaged and also because of the fog.  I treated my lens with fog eliminator which is distributed by Nikon.  It helps keep condensation from forming on the lens. It is not expensive and avaiable from Amazon http://amzn.to/1Ik0enV



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