The size of a marabou

Using contrasts in your composition, is sometimes a good tool to help you tell a story with your image. Contrasts can be used to enforce your punchline in the images as well. In these images taken in Ethiopia, I use different bird species (which actually are not that small) to give a scale that helps the spectatour to understand how big the marabou really is. It's one of the largest bird species on this planet. The upper one shows marabou and white-faced ducks, and the lower one is of a black-winged stilt and the marabou. The variation within the bird fauna never stops to amaze me.

-EG-

Payday!

After two weeks on my prime local birding spot, not a single new bird was seen. Nice observaitons of Greater short-toed lark (dverglerke), Citrine wagtail (sitronerle) and numerous rather confusing varieties of Arctic redpolls made the hopes stay high for the whole period, but we all felt like the star was missing. I tried to make a star of myself when I was interviewed by the Norwegian Broadcasting Radio (NRK) in a 2hr show about nature, but that was about it of fun events on the magical island. Hard work in the field despite, no big rarities wanted to pay us a visit this year.

It wasn't until I arrived back home that the nice message turned up on my cell phone - Stilt sandpiper! Only a short drive away, and what a bird! A long wanted "lifer", and he was a real crowd pleaser. For once, a bird that was cooperative, and the ever increasing crowd of happy birders could enjoy the spectacular bird until few meters distance. The Stilt sandpiper (styltesnipe), is only previously recorded two times in Norway with the last one all the way back in 1993. It breeds in subarctic and Arctic North America, and if they don't get lost on their way south like this one - they should spend the winter in Central- and South America.

This morning, some friends and I went out for an early morning photo shoot of the very welcome celebrity.

A big thank you goes to the local birder Per Inge Værnesbranden for passing on the message of this extraordinary recording, and let the rest of Norway's bird community take part in the nice experience.

Now I'm off to London to take part in a big nature photo award ceremony I was invited to join. More on that later.

-EG-