NikonGear'23
Images => Nature, Flora, Fauna & Landscapes => Topic started by: Mongo on September 18, 2016, 09:24:07
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It seems you cannot help but learn things when you observe them long enough.
This is a very short story of an adult Kelp Gull (AKA the Southern Black-backed Gull). It is quite a robust, strong gull (image #1) but can be also quite an elegant bird (image #2).
Mongo was sitting in front of a small sandstone shoal situated at water level. One of these large gulls was coming from the distance with something in its beak. All the while it was gaining altitude and started to circle the sandstone shoal. As it got closer, it became clearer that the thing in its beak was a local sea creature that looks like a large garden snail (image #3).
At a strategic point in its circling flight, the gull deliberately released the snail which then fell with great precision onto the sandstone below (images #4 and #5).
As the snail fell to the rocks below as intended, the gull began to follow it down (image #6).
The gull followed it down and inspect it. It seemed disappointed and It picked up the snail and again flew high over the sandstone shoal. It again dropped the snail from quite a height. Again, it landed on the sandstone. This time when the gull flew down to it, found it broken open and began to eat its freshly open reward (image #7)
Some time later, either the same gull or another of this species did exactly the same thing with another snail. This was starting to feel like when you first see such a scene in an Attenborough documentary. Mongo was aware that some birds use height/gravity to break open their otherwise hard to get at food. Mongo believed this behaviour was limited to a few far more intelligent bird species. However, now having seem it several time, there can be no doubt that this gull is one of those species.
D800E with nikon 200-500mm and monopod.
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Did the gull hit its target on the first try?
Very nice series.
Thank You!
Dave
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Did the gull hit its target on the first try?
Very nice series.
Thank You!
Dave
Thank you David - yes, it did but the shell failed to break the first time.
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Hi Mongo, another set of stunning images, Portraits and Action, the 200 - 500mm really shines in your hands.
Your a true inspiration for making this a lens choice.
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Nicely captured series Mongo and a very informative narrative. Thanks for this - I have now (almost) seen it with my own eyes thanks to you and the 200-500mm lens that you have been putting to good use.
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Great feature and story telling.
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Yet another intriguing documentation of intelligent wild birds. Needless to say, but the quality of the images are well suited for the "Mongo" brand.
Here in Japan, crows are known to be very intelligent. I saw a crow in a TV program that picks up a walnut, drops it onto a road and let a car run over it and break it. The crow ate the fruit inside.
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Really nice series of pictures of this very intelligent gull behaviour!
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Great series on the Gull behavior...! Perfect pictures :D
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Well taken 👍 Great sequence 😎
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Nicely done Mongo. Gulls are very resourceful birds and your wonderful sequence shows that quality beautifully.
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Here in Japan, crows are known to be very intelligent. I saw a crow in a TV program that picks up a walnut, drops it onto a road and let a car run over it and break it. The crow ate the fruit inside.
If it was the right kind of cockatoo it would just bust the nut open. Last night my friend's bird unscrewed the lid on a Target Department Store jar that once contained a trail mix. There were raw pistachio nuts inside. The jar is clear. After a couple of tentative tries at getting a nut through the plastic side it started unscrewing the lid. I let her pick out a half dozen nuts before I moved her away. The lit is about 15cm across. It was loosely but fully closed so she was able to use the tip of her beak. She had watched me unscrew the lit so she started turning it the correct direction on the first try.
Cockatoos name their young. The birds know their names, their parents names and their siblings names. This may be because a mated pair would need to keep track of each other in the rain forest with calls when they could not see each other. What would be better than calling out each others name?
Dave
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Very nice series!
You see that behaviour in Holland as well.
Another nice characteristic of Gulls (adults) is the very red dot on their beak.
When a juvenile ticks on that dot, the adult will open its beak and throw up some food. 😊
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I'll bet the bird has learned that the snail doesn't weight enough to brake the shell by simply dropping the snail, hence the need to drop a rock on it.
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Mongo
It's a wonderful series of photos! Thank you for posting.
Dave
Mongo: do you accept candy grams?
Sorry, I had to ask at least once. :)
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thank you all for looking in and for your kind and informative comments. Glad you liked the series.
Some specific replies: -
Akira, Mongo also saw that feature about the crow on TV and they are a very intelligent species. Perhaps only parrots are smarter.
David, Mongo does not know what a “candy gram “ is but it sound nice and Mongo is grateful for the thought in any event.
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Excellent behavioral documentation and exceptional photographs.
Similar behavior to the Bearded Vulture, or Lammergeir, dropping bones onto rocky surfaces.
http://www.reed.edu/biology/courses/BIO342/2012_syllabus/2012_WEBSITES/IvyH.BeardedVultures.2012/index.html (http://www.reed.edu/biology/courses/BIO342/2012_syllabus/2012_WEBSITES/IvyH.BeardedVultures.2012/index.html)
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;D
They are dinosaurs with feathers (it seems now that the majority did), so they ruled before us...
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David, Mongo does not know what a “candy gram “ is but it sound nice and Mongo is grateful for the thought in any event.
Monge definatly does NOT want a candy gram. That was a very naughty joke...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6_kasOHac (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6_kasOHac)
Candy gram for Mongo is one of many gags in the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles.
Dave
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thanks again.
John, Mongo also saw that program and is starting to wonder if we haven't generally underestimated the intelligence of these "feathered dinosaurs" all round.
David, thanks for filling Mongo in on "candy grams". Have never seen Blazing Saddles (although had heard of it) and did not know it had a "mongo" in it. This Mongo was created well before Blazing Saddles but seems to share the same primitive features and habits. As far as candy grams go, now that Mongo has seen what they are, you could say he has figuratively received many of those ....... ;D
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Interesting insights and terrific series. Your work suddenly makes that lens seem very desirable.
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Interesting insights and terrific series. Your work suddenly makes that lens seem very desirable.
thanks David. The lens is OK especially for the money. It seems to shine sometimes and not other times. That can only be Mongo operator error. However, Mongo would have been much much happier if it had been a straight 500mm f5.6. Indeed, without the extra zoom elements, it may even have been an f5 and certainly lighter , faster focusing and maybe other advantages too. Have almost never used the shorter focal lengths on it. On this note, there are rumours of a Sigma 500mm f4 FL lens for about 40% less than a Nikon equivalent. Worth a look for Mongo when it is released.
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Indeed good series, and another exemple of what such a lens could deliver.
Interesting enough, from my experience, to get sharp details, the bigger the animal the less critical the lens becames. And a gull is a big bird.
Is when I start to shoot the small criters, even from close distances, that I need the extraordinary quality of the big prime lens to reach pro results. And I'm not talking about cropping, is just to ataign those small feathers details...
Have you the same experience?
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;D
They are dinosaurs with feathers (it seems now that the majority did), so they ruled before us...
My friend's cockatoo slams her foot down hard when I ask if her great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great ... great grandmother was a Tyrannosaurus Rex. She's utterly incensed.
Third time now she opens a 1.5 lb. (680Kg) nut jar by unscrewing the lit with her beak and then tossing it. She's discovered the serrations on the side of the lit make turning the lid easier. The treat inside is raw pistachio nuts.
Dave who's glad he's not a snail
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My friend's cockatoo slams her foot down hard when I ask if her great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great ... great grandmother was a Tyrannosaurus Rex. She's utterly incensed.
Third time now she opens a 1.5 lb. (680Kg) nut jar by unscrewing the lit with her beak and then tossing it. She's discovered the serrations on the side of the lit make turning the lid easier. The treat inside is raw pistachio nuts.
Dave who's glad he's not a snail
David fascinating animal. It is not a cockatoo…….it sounds more like a sentient being !! It should be allowed to own a car and vote !
Indeed good series, and another exemple of what such a lens could deliver.
Interesting enough, from my experience, to get sharp details, the bigger the animal the less critical the lens becames. And a gull is a big bird.
Is when I start to shoot the small criters, even from close distances, that I need the extraordinary quality of the big prime lens to reach pro results. And I'm not talking about cropping, is just to ataign those small feathers details...
Have you the same experience?
Interesting question. Mongo notes that you have some superb equipment and that from your comments on the site from time to time, you are a strong believer in primes. Mongo can only relay his experiences have owned and/or used all the excellent tele primes from 200mm f2 to 600mm f4. For Mongo , small critters would be say, a wren or robin. Gulls are many times bigger and eagles many times bigger again.
There is no doubt the big primes (if it is a good copy, used well, in the proper atmospheric conditions and circumstances) has generally yields the best detail/sharpness result. Of course, this must be compared to the best of the non-prime lens’ performance. There are not many high end tele zooms. The 70-300mm VR, 70-200 f2.8, the latest 80-400mm VR, 200-400 f4, 200-500mm f5.6. There are also what Mongo calls “the little big primes” like the AFS 300mm f4 and PF which is an excellent performer.
We must not forget that by virtue of being a “big prime”, it usually has the advantage of “magnification” of the small critter’s details. In theory, the 200-400mm f4 is probably the closest in quality and focal length to make any reasonable comparison. At the outset, Mongo declares that he bought one of these new, hardly used it at all and sold it due to disappointment. Nonetheless, other copies he has used have performed much better than his copy did.
Distance to the small critter is a very important factor in the outcome of the image sharpness/detail (all else being equal). Mongo’s experience with the 200-500 and a good copy of the 200-400 is that they are both capable of producing incredibly detailed images of small details. However, where the distance is long, the primes really come into their own by holding onto that detail and sharpness over the greater distance in comparison to the zooms.
All lenses are affected by distance but the primes seem to be less adversely affected than zooms. Just where the critical distance point begins depends on many variables but when it does cut in, the primes perform slightly (and sometimes, significantly) better.
Mongo really likes the image quality of his 600mm f4 but is often now surprised by the results of some of his 200-500mm images. Far from always but now and then, for some unknown reason (perhaps because all the stars in the universe align at that moment), it just outperforms reasonable expectations of it. Mongo believes this occurs becuase of focus accuracy. Lenses do not always focus exactly on the same spot each time. On the occasions that they hit the mark, the difference is noticeable.
By way of example, Mongo has attached 2 images of a Ravin taken with the 200-500 at a distance of a little over 30metres (100 feet) using D800E.
#1 - the original completed processed image;
#2 - a 100% crop of #1 image.
Mongo thinks that a 500mm or 600mm prime may not have given any better a result in this case. Had the distance been greater, then, the primes may have been slightly better or maybe not.