Old and New Oyster Catchers

After the Black Oyster Catcher hen decided I was no threat while sitting on a rock at the beach, she rounded up her brood and marched them right by me (roughly 6 ft. away). In this shot, one of the kids was walking right beside her. The focus is better on the chick but I liked it because it showed the size relationship. I was caught by surprise or I could have moved to a smaller aperture and less shutter speed since they weren’t moving very fast.

Sony a6500, FE100400GSM @ 156 mm, ISO-400, f/7.1, 1/2500, hand held.

The hen is a little soft. The question is how critical do think that is in this kind of capture?

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
1 Like

I think the focus of this photo is the chick so a very slightly out of focus mother is fine. While I’ve seen Oyster Catchers, I’ve never seen a chick. Another wonderful Oyster Catcher photo. Thanks for posting this.

Never seen the chick before. Very nice capture showing the pair. I would agree with Jim that the main subject is the chick.

Oh good, the chicks. I never saw an Oyster Catcher chick before, so this is way cool, Gary. I am surprised that the eyes are dark when they are young. It is also surprising that she let the young be on the side where you were, you would have thought that she would have been at least trying to protect it from you, so she obviously saw you as no threat at all. Very nice shot.

Cool shot Gary. I was drawn to it because we have the American Oyster Catcher here in the east and I have never seen a chick in person. I think the ability to see parent and offspring together is helpful diagnostically. You might want to offer this to folks who produce bird ID aids. Good sharp details. One nit. The forward foot of the chick looks strange. I think it is because it is so much sharper than the rock it appears to be on. Perhaps selective sharpening didn’t work well here???

Thank you, Julia. I’ll have to investigate to see who might be interested in the photo for documentation purposes. As for the “strange” foot, it is an optical illusion caused by the fairly shallow depth of field. The rock that you are thinking it’s foot is on is actually a rock that it’s mother is stepping on and far enough back that it’s out of the focal range. The chick’s foot is actually in the air and is about to land on the foreground rock on the lower left side of the image (which is in the same focal range as the foot and thus is sharply detailed).

Another excellent Oystercatcher image, Gary. You put the focus on the right place for my taste and the adult is still acceptably sharp.

As some of the others, the chick is new to me as well, at least of this species of OC. Wonderful to have them both in one image. Of course, I would have preferred a lower angle of view, but I have no clue if that was an option in the first place. A fine image ! Cheers, Hans