Food Playing - Click image to view larger!

Thanks for viewing/comments! Every now and then ... the Terns would play

with food like this by tossing the fish and then dive to catch it again ... and

they do miss catching it .. at times also.

Don't forget to see the image next to this one to see the 3 consecutive shots that show the Terns food playing  ...

Great capture! We also looked at your sequence shots! AMAZING!

I'm just wondering how come you are always in the right place at the right time when this is happening. It's even hard to take photos of the bird itself.. Wow TM J this is amazing.

Thanks Gregory!

Thanks Nelson! I guess I am very lucky Nelson :-) - I do shoot almost daily on week days and 2,3 hours on the two weekend days. Aside from that, I think after 3 years of shooting bird I begin to know where and when to shoot and increase my chance of being lucky. For this particular shot, I was suppose to come to work late since I had to stay till 5PM but I forgot and came in at 5AM, hence, I took a 3,4 hours lunch to go to Bolsa Chica in Huntingon Beach and .. got lucky. Notice that I was not really prepared for this and only got the 100-400mm to shoot with for this shot. I would have prefer to use my 500mm F4.

Sometimes, luck presented itself but I am not ready for it either. For example, looking at Monte (current shot) shot of the Red-tail & Coot I weep a little since a few months back the red-tailed hawk was on the ground and I had thought it was injured, came toward the bird too close only to realize that the hawk had the coot grab and about to fly off. Seeing Monte's shot make me realize that next time I see a hawk on the ground, lay down and aim to shoot, LOL! - In short, experience does help some! - Happy ... birdshooting!

This is a very different shot to Monte's picture Tim. It has a minimalistic feel to it and dare I say, a humorous element. A very well done picture!

another beautiful image that shows this particular play behaviour of the stern, ciao Giangiorgio