On an amazingly calm day where I looked over the water and just prayed for a few passes of some low, slow flying skimmers it came to pass. Just a couple made passes near enough to get some great shots, and I did my best to take advantage of the situation. Many more were out near the reddish egret and made several passes where they never flapped, they simply skimmed with their wings out straight horizontally. It was still impressive.

While the wingtip clipping happened in far too many shots I really liked the effect anyway. These shots are not cropped at all, just trimmed down to 1200 pixels when exported from LightRoom2.

Without further ado, here are the shots I chose to post today. Hopefully no one is getting tired of seeing so many shots of these magnificent birds. Sadly, they will be migrating out of the area in the near future, and it will be another eight months or so until they return.

Neat shots especially where you have captured the full relection. Favourite composition is number 3 where the eye is drawn totally to the bird without any distractions.
Martin

Martin Good wrote:
Neat shots especially where you have captured the full relection. Favourite composition is number 3 where the eye is drawn totally to the bird without any distractions.
Martin
Martin,

Thank you! I never thought about the absence of distraction in the 3rd shot. Good point.

Doug,

nice series - - hard to get still water at Bolsa

A few nice ones for sure.

Congratulations

Lil

Doug,
Numer 3 is a WINNER!!
Good Job!
Tim

Way to go Doug, great shooting, they got in close to you! #3 is fantastic, I would consider trimming out the bottom much and show water only on this one Very nice job on the follow focusing, what a great reward to have these shot captured!

Karl

Yah. third one is best!
Nice series. Thanks for sharing.

Bill

Karl Witt wrote:
Way to go Doug, great shooting, they got in close to you! #3 is fantastic, I would consider trimming out the bottom much and show water only on this one Very nice job on the follow focusing, what a great reward to have these shot captured!

Karl
Karl,

Great idea on the cropping. If you refresh your screen it is now cropped to just show the bird, water and trail. It does make for a much better shot this way.

After months of spending time following these birds and getting captures today was the pay-off - in a big way. A month ago half or more of these shots would have been out-of-focus. Thankfully, the calm weather conditions and birds combined at a time I had just enough experience to get the captures. Just wish I would have zoomed out just a teensy weensy bit more to get the wingtips in the frame!

Lil Judd wrote:
Doug,
nice series - - hard to get still water at Bolsa
A few nice ones for sure.
Congratulations
Lil
Thank again Lil. After over two months of going out the only calm day I've seen happened to be today. The last calm day was in the morning back at the end of May or so, and there were no skimmers out then. To say I was elated at seeing this is an understatement.

tfoltz wrote:
Doug,
Numer 3 is a WINNER!!
Good Job!
Tim
Thank you Tim. Karl's advice on cropping was very sound, and now I think the shot is even better. Guess I should look at cropping more closely to work with the subject. These were more of an idea to preserve how the shot was taken - which mean almost nothing. It showed the condition that existed as I looked through the viewfinder and took the shots.

web52 wrote:
Yah. third one is best!
Nice series. Thanks for sharing.

Bill
Thank you BIll. You are quite welcome. It seems that #3 caught everyone's attention way more than I could have anticipated. I preferred the last three shots myself, but can appreciate #3 more now that it's cropped. That full reflection really is nice, and the beak just coming out of the water, yet still having a trail simply works.

Good shootin' in Morning Light on these, Doug! VERY nice reflection shots. Yeah, I too will miss these always entertaining Skimmers when they take off...

Best Wishes,
Steve

good work Doug. Looks like you're getting good uses out of that lens. Ready to give it back for my osprey season?

Very nice Doug, fascinating shots of a fascinating activity!!
Leon

Great shots!! Amazingly calm water!

Very nice, I really like the third one.

Neat action shots Doug. Great work.
Harsha