In summer, Celia frequents the beaches of El Puerto de Santa Maria to get a nice tan, when she is not looking after our birds. She reported a lot of diving Terns the other day, so I decided to go and capture some of these wonderful birds on camera.
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| Common Tern |
It might have been due to the low tide, but the birds I saw during my almost three hour walk on the beach were quite far offshore and low in numbers. I spotted some Sandwich Terns and a dozen of Common Terns. Occasionally they came close to the beach for a dive straight into the water to catch a fish. It is rather difficult to catch a bird on camera with a fish in its beak, because it's hard to focus on the birds when it emerges out of the waves. Ideally you would prefocus, but it's almost impossible to predict where the bird will dive. So it's more hit-and-miss than anything else. I was lucky enough to leave with some pleasant shots. |
| Sandwich Tern on the lookout for fish below |
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| … diving into the water |
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| Success! |
Apart from this wonderful diving show, I also saw a huge flock of Spoonbills passing by, around 90 individuals strong, later followed by two smaller groups, 40 and 27 individuals respectively.
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| Bando! First flock of Spoonbills. |
Late I also spotted a few unexpected guests like Osprey, Kestrel, Whimbrel and Parasitic Jaeger (also known as Arctic Skua).
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| Parasitic Jaeger flow low over the water |
I did not get the perfect shot of a Tern, emerging out of the water with a freshly caught fish, but the results were decent. I might go back to this beach very soon to get closer to perfection.
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| Tern in a steep dive with the Constitution Bridge in the background |
Henry.
