Birds in Nature - images of wild birds by Richard Ditch

Subject: Red Knots (Calidris canutus)?
Place: Margate, NJ, USA
Date: March 1988
Equipment: Nikon FE2, 400/5.6 & TC14 (=560/8)
Film: Kodachrome 64
Exposure: aperture priority center-weighted meter
Scan: Minolta Dimage, 80% of frame

Commentary: I was leading a van of birders, looking for Snowy Owls along the barrier beaches in southern NJ. While stopped in traffic we spotted this flock of shorebirds waiting for the tide to fall. I took a couple of quick frames from the van, but didn't bother to set up the scope to properly identify these shorebirds. At the time I wrote them off as Dunlin (the expected shorebird to be seen in flocks away from the beach), but scanning the image and looking closely has changed my mind. From a bad scan made over a year ago I decided they were probably Western Sandpipers (Calidris mauri), but this is a strange place to see them resting. Now with a better scan and a higher resolution, I'm calling them Red Knots. Not every experienced birder gets the ID correct all the time; some even get it wrong the second time. I hope I've got it right the third time!

In spite of the ID issues, I like the graphics of this image. for a change I've handled a group of birds without major amputation problems. The bird taking flight in the lower left gives this image a center of interest.