From Andasibe national park, East-Central Madagascar.
Calling from her perch she would feign injury, hobble around and draw me off until I was far enough away from her eggs that she felt comfortable. Then she would abandon all pretence and fly off.
Flying down to the ground she would spread out her wings to break up her outline so as to hide better:
One of the brief moments where she actually shut up!
All these were shot with the 5D mark II and the Zeiss 100mm Makro planar T* f/2.8 C/Y lens.
Great captures & you must have been very close to use only a 100mm Macro & get these. Maybe a tad too close... Hopefully they're crops. We don't want Moms upset
So I've seen nightjars, and photographed nightjars but not anything like these...really super shots but like some others have said hopefully you weren't too close to have her abandon her nest.
Eric
To allay people's fears I should mention that first off I'm not a birder but a macro photographer and so I only came upon this nightjar because she happened onto the path and not by searching her out (hence why I used a 100mm lens). 2) The female feigns injury, typically a broken wing in order to lure predators away from her nest. She will actually engage them by drawing ever closer, yet still out of reach, until she has the attention of the predator, and then she can slowly draw them away from the nest. I didn't even see the nest, and the only indication that I had that it was in the vicinity was the way that she was behaving. So when people say "Nice pictures but you were way too close to this bird" - I was actually on the trail, right where I was supposed to be.
Since you chose my comments I guess I should respond. You should have moved away from the bird until she showed no signs of stress. Just because the macro was the only lens you had doesn't mean you had to use it. Just my opinion.
