American Oystercatcher Close-up’s

I thought that this trip was going to be a bust.  Headed to Bolivar flats before sunrise and found high tide, no exposed sandbars and waves in the gulf.  Also forgot to put my rubber boots back into the car.  Listened to my gut and turned the car around and headed to the Texas City Dike to look for my Oystercatcher buddies.  It took some searching but I found one of them in the usual spot walking along the edge of the dike looking for, guess what, Oysters.  Got lucky as he found one in my line of sight.  Was able to get another shot of one walking in my direction, which is always a cool perspective.  The morning turned out better than anticipated.  It’s always good to have a plan B in mind when heading out to the field.

Had the 1.4x attached and got almost full framed shots.  Considered taking the teleconverter off as I was almost too close but didn’t want to take the time and lose more shots.

Taken with Canon 7D and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4x III teleconverter out the car window, setting lens on my bean bag

1/1000 sec @ F7.1, ISO 400, evaluative metering, -1/3 exposure compensation, 700mm

1/1600 sec @ F7.1, ISO 400, evaluative metering, -1/3 exposure compensation, 700mm

1/1250 sec @ F7.1, ISO 400, evaluative metering, -1/3 exposure compensation, 700mm