Photos showing sandpipers in flight as well as the reflections of the birds.

/

Photos taken from the North Jetty of the Galveston ship channel November 14, 2021. The larger birds are Dunlins and the smaller one Western Sandpipers.

Note the collision of the reflections of the two birds on the left.

Both photos were taken with an Olympus E-M1X camera and a 150-400mm f4.5 TC lens. Shots were taken handheld @ 419mm, 1/5000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1000. Click on the image to see a slightly larger view.

Especially in the early days of my bird photography adventures, the monthly programs of the Francis M. Weston Audubon Society in Pensacola FL, their monthly publication (Skimmer), and the information on their web pages greatly facilitated my ability to locate and identify the birds I photographed. The barcharts in Bob and Lucy Duncan’s “The Birds of Escambia, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa Counties, Florida” explained why the birds were not where I expected them to be and when they were likely to return. I am especially grateful to Lucy and Bob for their help over the years with difficult (for me) identifications.

/ /

David Sparks

I retired in 2005 after 40 years of research and teaching at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (24 years), the University of Pennsylvania (8 years) and the Baylor College of Medicine (8 years). Photography is my retirement hobby.

Nature photography, especially bird photography, combines a number of things that I really enjoy: bird-watching, being outdoors, photography, travel, messing about with computers, and learning new skills and concepts.  I now spend much of my time engaged in these activities.

David Sibley in the preface to The Sibley Guide to Birds wrote "Birds are beautiful, in spectacular as well as subtle ways; their colors, shapes, actions, and sounds are among the most aesthetically pleasing in nature."  My goal is to acquire images that capture the beauty and uniqueness of selected species as well as images that highlight the engaging behaviors the birds exhibit.