Saturday, January 17, 2015

Saunders's Gull in La Union (new Philippine record!)


I finally found some time to process the other shots I took last January 9th at the vast fishponds of Sto. Tomas, La Union. It turns out that I actually captured a new Philippine record in this sortie - a Saunders's Gull. This is the third new record that I've been fortunate to photo-document (the first was a Common Starling in Palawan way back in 2007, and the second was the recent Amur Falcon also in La Union) :)

It was fishing over a shallow pond in the company of dozens of Whiskered Terns, another migratory species. Even in a flock in flight, the gull was easy to differentiate from the terns because of its much larger size.

 
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Saunders's Gull (Larus saundersi, migrant, new Philippine record)

Habitat - photographed while foraging over fishponds.
 
 
 
Shooting info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, January 9, 2015, Canon 1D Mark IV + EF 500 f4 IS,
500 mm, f/4, ISO 640, 1/2000 sec, manual exposure in available light, 475B/516 support, major crop.

 

Shooting info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, January 9, 2015, Canon 1D Mark IV + EF 500 f4 IS,
500 mm, f/4, ISO 640, 1/2000 sec, manual exposure in available light, 475B/516 support, major crop.
1500 x 1000 version



Shooting info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, January 9, 2015, Canon 1D Mark IV + EF 500 f4 IS,
500 mm, f/4, ISO 640, 1/2000 sec, manual exposure in available light, 475B/516 support, major crop.
1200 x 800 version

Great Egret in golden light

The slightly overcast skies provided very soft lighting in this quickie sortie to the vast fishponds of Sto. Tomas (La Union), my first birding in 2015.

With the gape unmistakeably extending way past behind the eye, it seems to me the migratory bird in this photo is easy to tell apart from its white cousins. This waterbird has a wing span of 1.48 meters, and a length of 0.91 m.

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Great Egret (Egretta alba, migrant)

Habitat - Uncommon in a variety of wetlands from coastal marshes to ricefields.
 
Shooting info - Sto. Tomas, La Union, January 9, 2015, Canon 1D MIV + EF 500 f4 L IS, 500 mm, f/4, ISO 1250, 1/2000 sec, 475B/3421 support.
 

 

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