John Holmes

Black-capped Kingfisher, pursued by Saunders's Gull

Mai Po boardwalk, 19th November 2014

irsychan

Excellent photos!  

tomatofamily

Hi, John.
From these shots I knew it was you, who were in the same hide with us on the same day, left us some impressive kindness introducing some names of the birds.  My friend, my wife and I were so thankful for your short stop-by and gave us the info.  I saw the gull chasing the Black-capped kingfisher in the scene too.  My captures were poor.  However, from this occasion and other observation, I found that the gulls were aggressive species that liked to chase those who had food in its mouth.  Why is such behaviour, even there are plenty food available?
Best.
Eric

tomatofamily

BTW, John, what was the camera setting for these shots: AI Servo? shutter speed, aperture, ISO?  I am  using 7D MKII and Tamron 150-600mm.  And you have 1DX and 600mm?  Appreciate in advance.

John Holmes

Hi Eric,

It was nice to meet you,too.

There were lots of birds about, weren't there ?  I was using a Canon 1D Mk4 and an 800mm lens. I usually set everything manually if there is a chance of flight shots, because while the exposure for the bird remains the same, the background can change so much.  (And on "Auto" Exposure, obviously, a bright background makes the bird too dark.)

I used AI Servo, shutter speed 1/5000, f.6.3 and ISO 500 in the bright light. There's no right or wrong way to do it, but "blowing the highlights" is the big error to avoid if possible.

Even with the 800 lens these image crops are less than 25% of the frame area.

As for aggressive gull behaviour, they chase each other as well as smaller birds. Aggression must help them survive, even if it looks like robbery sometimes !

tomatofamily

Thanks John so much for the detailed reply.  Practice, which I think, is a must for better capture of this kind of chasing shots.

Good day.

Eric