Several weeks ago I posted a set of a female hooded merganser that after catching a crayfish was "robbed" of her prey by a male counterpart: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1734433/0#15811607. I saw that behavior a few times later but either it was too far away or I simply didn't capture the action well (I dozed off.... ). I got the hunch that the mugger is the same male merganser that seemingly considers mugging a female mergansers as a sport or just flat out lazy.
More recently, I was able to capture a sequence where the female is no pushover and she fought hard to get the prey back that she caught earlier and ended up winning! Obviously, this female has been around and knows how to handle the situation. She swam away a little, and since the crayfish was fairly small, she swallowed it really fast. Even then, the male merganser wasn't quite ready to give up and he surfaced next to her to find out that not much he could do anymore.
Originally, I used a fast shutter speed to capture the action of hooded mergansers and then I used 1/1000sec. last year and finally this year, I lowered it further to 1/500sec. in the last few outings. I like water splashes at that shutter speed and to record a mixed of sharp and somewhat blurred sections, accentuating movement. Here the actions were a tad too fast for that shutter speed and some sections of images although still lively, start to show movement blurs on the mergansers.
Thank you for stopping by and please feel free to leave any feedback,
Joshua
#1 - Caught a small crayfish
#2 - Thief from below the surface and caught her by surprise
#3 - Not giving up that easily
#4 - Climbing on the male to get the prey back
#5 - Almost lost the grip
#6 - Fighting with all her might
#7 - She is feisty fighter
#8 - After some underwater actions, she emerged victoriously
#9 - Get it done and over with! I love the disappointed look of the thief!
What a fantastically fun sequence Joshua. Love the look on the thief's face in that one shot as she choked it down.
Couple of questions.
1) How where you ready for this sequence? Did you see the male dive under and knew what was about to happen from previous experience?
2) How in heck did you pull those 840mm shots off at 1/500? I can't click on a snail @ 700mm & 1/500 without getting subject motion blur. I see a little blur but nothing like I would have gotten with all that movement. You wouldn't be able to make out an eyeball in my case.
lighthound wrote:
What a fantastically fun sequence Joshua. Love the look on the thief's face in that one shot as she choked it down.
Couple of questions.
1) How where you ready for this sequence? Did you see the male dive under and knew what was about to happen from previous experience?
2) How in heck did you pull those 840mm shots off at 1/500? I can't click on a snail @ 700mm & 1/500 without getting subject motion blur. I see a little blur but nothing like I would have gotten with all that movement. You wouldn't be able to make out an eyeball in my case. ...Show more →
Thank you for your kind comment, Dave! Normally, I would reply according to the sequence but since you posted some questions, I will reply to yours first.
1. Since I was using mostly the viewfinder or the flip screen to capture and track the female merganser, my vision was limited to her. As such, I didn't see that male merganser at all when it dove nearby. I have seen that behavior a few times before but it happened only to female mergansers. And it happened to this particular female merganser here and that without my being able to anticipate the action.
2. I used a tripod with a gimbal head on it. That helped my case for smoother tracking and to minimize camera/lens movement. The legs of the tripod were splayed but I couldn't get any lower than what it was due to some physical obstructions. That shutter speed was fine for other merganser actions but for this particular one here, it was a tad too slow. I noticed some movement blurs due to that although I like the way water splashes/movement are rendered.
). I got the hunch that the mugger is the same male merganser that seemingly considers mugging a female mergansers as a sport or just flat out lazy. 
I see a little blur but nothing like I would have gotten with all that movement. You wouldn't be able to make out an eyeball in my case.