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Greater Crested Tern

Greater Crested Tern (Image ID 39380)
Photographed byJim Schultz on Tue 25th Feb, 2020 and uploaded on Fri 28th Feb, 2020 .
Resolution1350x1050
Viewed210
ID39380
CommentNot long ago, the yellowish-billed Greater Crested Tern was known simply as the ‘Crested Tern’, but recently it grew ½ a dress size in order to avoid confusion with the Lesser Crested Tern, a very similar, but somewhat neater and smaller bird, which fortunately sports a slightly orange bill. Thus, the diagnostic clout used to determine the species in this image is the lemon-tinged bill, rendering this bird a Greater Crested Tern. Identification aside, the Greater Crested Tern occurs at nearly all Australian coastlines; rarely does it venture inland. Breeding on offshore islands in very dense colonies, it can be very frustrating for a parent bird to feed a caught fish into the right chick’s bill. As a whole horde of begging chicks will stretch necks upon the aerial arrival of any adult bird, the parent bird often needs several approaches in order to achieve delivery to the right gape. Sexes are alike, the species conspicuous and common. Woodman Point; GPS. Status (2012): Least Concern
EquipmentOlympus OM-D E-M1X camera body with Olympus 300mm f4 IS Pro ED M.Zuiko lens; Velbon Neo Carmagne Carbon Tripod with Manfrotto Ball Head Art 498RC2. Camera settings: Exposure Program/Shooting Mode: ‘Manual’; shutter speed 1/3200 sec, f5.6 & ISO-400. Metering Mode: ‘CenterWeightedAverage’; Focus Mode: ‘Continous-AF’ with the AF-system further set to ‘AF-Target Mode’ and a target group of 9 sensors (3x3). Drive: ‘Sequential shooting (4frame)’ in ‘Continuous Low’. Maximum burst rate habitually set to 12 to prevent filling up the buffer for which reason also I shoot only in RAW. Image Stabilizer routinely left on (S-SIS AUTO); In-Camera Sharpness +2. (These settings are also the combination I favour for birds in flight; it took a lot of experimentation with the OM-D E-M1X/300 mm F4 lens combo to find a merger of settings suitable for this challenging discipline.) Olympus Workspace for metadata; FastStone for viewing & sorting; Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw/CC 2020 for post-processing; Topaz Pro plug-ins Sharpen AI, DeNoise AI & Studio 2 for sharpening and noise control. ‘Australian Bird Guide 2019’ for identification, supplementary data and colour checks.
LocationWoodman Point; GPS, Western Australia
Keywordsfeeding/with prey, in flight, adult, breeding plumage/features, non-breeding plumage/features, behaviour/display
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