I decided to go ahead and stay with the programming interruption for yesterday. Normally the fruits of my photography shoot labors go on my FIFO darkroom queue. Unfortunately, that means you might not see anything for a long long time – (as regular readers may know, the Yellowstone trip from May 2013 is just know being worked up. Since yesterday’s post was such a downer, thought I’d brighten it up a bit and talk about a silver lining that came out of the tragic event. Once everything was wrapped up with the wreck, we continued on to Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge – or intended destination before we were sidetracked for an hour or so. The wildlife was primarily made up of water chickens but my golden rule is to look for the outliers. This was what I was doing while standing on the cement blocks along the shore. Disappointed that a potential find ended up being just another chicken I lowered The Beast. At that time movement was detected. Absolutely stunned, this appeared.
Up came The Beast and the snapping commenced. To be honest, I was not exactly sure what it was. It definitely did not fit the Sandpiper family – the bill was way too thick and those feet where mega-thick. As my brother can attest, I’m not one for really doing my identification in the field. If it is bright out, it virtually impossible to see the 7000’s LCD screen anyway. Check the image histogram (which is easy to read) to make sure the full range of exposure is available and focus on getting as many angles as possible to aid in the ID process.
Hit the jump to read a bit more about this unique bird.