Goosanders (Common Merganser; Gänsesäger) are one of the loveliest of the waterbirds we get here in the Alps. Unfortunately, they are extremely shy (and rare), being often shot.
Female Goosander, showing the distinctive red neck ring clearly distinguishing her from the somewhat similar Red-breasted Merganser (which has nothing near a clear red-white margin).
Beautiful male Goosander showing off his tooth saw - if you look carefully you can see what duck's teeth look like ;-) They are piscivores (fish eaters), hence the teeth, to hold on to their slippery prey.Digiscoped with a Swarovski Optik STM80HD spotting scope, TLS800 digiscoping adapter, and Canon 5D mark II.
Happy digiscoping,
Dale
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8 comments:
Wow Dale, these are two very impressive portraits! That's for sure not easy to do with digiscoping but you are a master! Well done!
Great detail Dale did you have a blind?
These guys are very spooky.
Superb captures Dale.
Nice pictures Dale.I will have to try out a TLS800 sometime.
I am sure you meant Red-breasted Merganser and not Hooded as a confusion spieces.
Gwynn
ooops, typing faster than my brain was thinking. idiot ;-)
thank you for your comment, Gwynn, I have changed it in my post.
btw, the pics were taken in a local zoo - because of persecution, the closest one can get to goosanders here is many hundreds of meters away. This is what they look like digiscoped at 2000mm focal length: http://alpinebirds.blogspot.com/2009/04/goosanders-on-inn.html - still rather small!
Dale,
Thanks for stopping by my blog, and i hope to be a frequent visitor to yours.
You have a lot of excellent information and photographs. I have not tried digiscoping, but have read about it before. I guess it works much the same way as using 35mm lenses on the Canon XL-h1 camcorder where one has a 7.2 multiplication factor and a 500mm lens has an equivalent focal length of 3600mm. I commonly use the 100-400mmL with this camera and the 500mm at times for long range bird and animal filming.
Exquisite shots of the Common Mergansers Dale. It sounds like they're not so common over there. I love watching them fish here in the Sacramento River.
Those shots are awesome and so are the birds.
I actually didn't know that some bird have 'teeth' - one never ceases to learn new things :D
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