I had a chance to photograph these terns on Sanibel Island, FL recently. One behavior I noticed was their tendency to shake off and flip their head upside down after a dive into the water.
Canon 7D2, Sigma 150-600 C
ISO 400, f7.1, 1/3200s, hand held
Here’s is another shot of the shake off:
And a banking pose:
Very cool, Allen. I haven’t had a whole lot of exposure to these, and never noticed this behavior. It’s very interesting and pretty weird looking. Excellent work to catch this. I think my favorite is the second. It seems just marginally sharper and the pose is just a tiny bit more flamboyant.
I love sandwich terns. Catching that shake has always been tough for me. I think I like the third one best. It seems a hair sharper than the other two, and I like the wingspread and fanned tail. Light is very nice.
Interesting behavioral shots, nicely captured.
Great captures with terrific detail. Your could say these terns were just making a turn.
Excellently captured! For some reasons I have always missed this - they always surprise me when doing the shaking. The 2nd images is the best I’d say, I like the pose a bit better than in the first image. Cheers, Hans
Excellent behavioral images of these turns. Good job on the exposure, detail, and composition. How nice to be able to shoot at iso-400!
