The story of “Little Dave” Part 6: “All Settled Down”

Author David Rennie ◦

So one day Deb and Little Dave came and landed with a couple of youngens. Cute little mini versions of Deb and Little Dave. Little Dave was showing em how to catch fish and they would try to stay beside him, but he was to fast. He would catch the fish and then give it to them. Then I recon the penny dropped and he slowed down, took them to were the water was running out on the falling tide and all 4 just stood there. Every now and then the youngens would stab the water, splash, come up empty, Little Dave or Deb would give them a fish that they had caught. Then one of the youngens nailed one, there was great excitement and it ate it, gingerly tossed it around so it was head first. The second youngen nailed one and it was then a catch for every 4 stabs.

This went on for several days then I noticed it was one fish in 3 stabs, then 2 stabs, that’s about where it stayed, they had periods of 4 out 4 and so on. Then they started the running and chasing fish and nailing them. Over time they started to fly off for spells and some times they did not come in the mornings till later. Can’t remember when but one day they did not come at all for a few days, then several, then I did not see them all together again as Deb, Little Dave and the Kids. “The kids had flown the coup”.

An interesting thing I noticed is how Little Dave used his wings. When he ran he would have em out and to help turn sharp chasing the fish he would drop a wing, close one or drop it to help him turn. He also used it to create a shadow in front of him, fishing with his back to the sun. He would put his wings up and cast a shadow, this cut the glare of the water out and he could see the fish, clever. The other thing I noticed and this took awhile is Egrets do not poo in the water, if they are fishing, they will fly back to land, poo and then fly back to the feeding grounds, I supposed that the fish would know they where there by the poo smell in the water?

During this same time MR and MRs Smith came into the Area, a pair of Osprey, so I was now sharing time with them as well. Then the new arrivals a small mob of Spoonbills made their home here and I was getting real busy. Deb and little Dave went on to have 4 clutches of kids, 3 lots of 2 and one of 3 that I know of. I think I might have said this was a 5 year thing, but looking at dates on photos it was more like 3 years, so sorry for that, felt like 5.

TIP:
Once you have your photo that you’re happy with, you have processed it, then its how do you present it. Cropping is the most important thing you can learn to understand. People look at a image in one of 5 places. Put 5 dots on a picture. Middle, 1/3 in 1/3 down top left and right, bottom left and right. 70% of people view their image from the bottom left 1/3 up 1/3 in. That’s why you hear about “Leading Lines” to draw you into the picture. So cropping a Landscape is different to cropping birds. You should leave space for the bird to fly, walk or look into, so if the bird is facing the right or flying right leave more space on the right and crop from the 3 other sides.

So I see the centre dot first, most of my images are the “Fill the frame theory”. The black and white is a good example of that. As Little Dave is turning right and is looking kinda right down, I have left a bit of space on the right and down, but the frame is fairly full. This helps relay he is sharp turning right. Negative space, out of focus branches, light or dark patches behind in the BG are all distractions that draw our eye away from the prize.

“TIP” the background is as important as the subject, study the background and try and shoot from a position where there will be the least amount of BG distraction.

At the end of the day crop to what your eye likes, but learn to crop, learn to compose your image in your head as to what it would look like finished.

To be continued.