With the first day spent at the salt marsh in adverse weather I came back more prepared and with comfort! The day would prove to be a long one. Six hours in total watching and waiting; which can be its own entertainment as well. I was even greeted by two deer (sorry no photo of that, camera was pre-occupied.) The nest has been around for approximately 2-3 weeks according to a local beach walker. Leaning toward the third week. Meaning they could hatch any day now and today was that day.
The killdeer began to hatch one after the other. She had laid three eggs which tends to be more rare then the more common four (how they hold a huge portion of the future inside them like that is beyond me with the size of the eggs in relation to her body.) Later that day while I changed a card (own nothing bigger then 8gb cards) I saw a hatchling tucked away. After quickly retreating I observed a head pop-up. Probably the first one I saw. When finally dry and with enough strength to greet the world a second soon followed. The third egg remained unhatched for the remainder of the stay. No worries however.The next day I returned to make sure all three eggs & eggshells were missing. Although stray cats can and could be the culprit I learned something new behaviorally from watching the killdeer.
Killdeer (and possibly other shore birds) will carry the egg shells away from the nest in order to protect it. After seeing the action occur more then once I was able to confirm it for myself. Later talking to Dina she told me one of the reasons this is done is to reduce the likeliness of visibility to aerial predators. The outside of the shell is spotted and beige similar to the sand with dark spots; while the inside is a pearly white and can shimmer being wet from the embryo.
Watching as the 2 of 3 were born, knowing my cards were getting full and the light was going from good to bad I left them to finish getting the offspring ready for their journey. Killdeer chicks will be ready to feed almost immediately and just need their parents to protect and guide them.
Taking some of their first peeks into the world.
Finally mustering up the courage to share their face with the world.
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Two side notes here. Some cool news tips:
- Mozilla is coming out with a newer version with their Firefox internet browser that is going to support color profiles. Finally coming one step closer to sharing the way we want to share the images we take with the world. Check this link out for all the details! (make sure to test it as it needs to be turned on. I wasn;t a fan in certain circumstances. Hope they work out the bugs.)
- Google buys up one million phone numbers for their upcoming Google Voice service. Wanted to update anyone who was still interested in getting full control of their phone services. Can’t wait for it to become available? Sign up here to get an invite as soon as it is available. Read about it’s features here and see how much it can do to help your business line.
This is what awaited me as I pulled up to see how the mute swans were doing. With all the crappy weather we have been getting I haven’t been able to check up on them for a week. Even today the skies were overcast and the clouds came down to say hello. This is the left over egg that didn’t seem to make the grade. I couldn’t find the parents at first. Then after scanning hard through the fog I found them across the pond. I quickly hopped down to the other end of the pond to only find them moving in the opposite direction. Once I settled back to where I originally started I began to photograph the family with their new bouncing baby swans. Turns out just three days ago she was still watching eggs according to Joe (a nice guy I met while I was there.) We both missed out and didn’t get to catch the hatching.
They were on the lawn imitating their mother following every move she made. It really was fascinating to see how as she plucked the grass and so did they, as she would groom herself they would imitate, as she stretched her wings they stretched their winglets [insert aww here.] Oh a photographic heads up here. Green reflection from scattered light on a white bird makes for green mute swans! A rare and seldom seen species. 
Brother and sisters playing around competing for their mothers attention.
As you can see here you can’t even see the other side of the pond. Maybe a faint shoreline? Finding a white bird in the dense fog after this was intensely difficult. The mother always stayed close while the father patrolled and kept his distance for most of the experience. After chasing them (not literally of course) from pond side to pond side I eventually had to give up losing them to mother natures cover.
I did find myself a friend however. The only thing left is the great egret and the perch. Everything was just blanketed in fog. You could even feel the thickness with the humidity. Tough seeing past 20ft even. This was the second time finding him/her. They are awfully flighty and will move at a moments notice. Thankfully after our first encounter he/she cut me some slack.
Beginning to focus on grooming the attention moved away from me and soon toward finding a meal. Staying still and using weeds and trees as cover helped me have this intimate encounter.
This was his/her last stance before he/she would move on down into the reeds and lilies where I could no longer get a good shot. I do however prefer him/her leaving the scene that way then flying off as if I disturbed or pressured him/her.
Once that moment with the great egret had passed I wandered through the park back to the car and these trees just caught my attention. The fog was creating this aura and glow within the edging forest. I snapped a few shots with my Nikon 80-400 and couldn’t wait until I got back to my PC to do some editing. Editing by the way for the wildlife as above and all such pictures is just a simple adjustment of black point and white point. Cuts right through that haze.
As for this image I used a compilation of Nik software plugins and will be showing what I chose and went about from start to completion. Also did a black and white/sepia version. Stay tuned. More to come!
