Parasitic & Long tailed Jaeger at Hamilton's Van Wagners Beach

I couldn't help but chase the Parasitic and Long tailed Jaeger's that were at Van Wagner's Beach this Saturday morning. I was going to title this posting: Chasing Jagermeister, the bird, not the shot.  I've never been one to do shots, so I'll just give the basic title above.

Anyway, I arrived at Van Wagners Beach at 8:30am and walked the beach for a few minutes. I quickly spotted a Sanderling and experimented photographing it at different ISO/Aperture combinations. I also got low to the ground to really allow the short, telephoto induced depth of field to really isolate the bird from its background with natural gaussian blur. Some of my last photos of the Sanderling were at ISO200/F11, which ended up hurting me later...

Later on, I joined a group of birders at the Lakeland Center and finally met Josh Vandermeulen & David Bell. I told Josh that when I leave at 11am, the birds will naturally come in. Ironically, 11-12 had the best showings of Jaegers of the morning, so my extra hour there paid off.

My earlier ISO200/ F11 setting ended up giving me 1/300 sec when the Jaeger went overhead...

 

At noon, I checked out the Windermere Basin which is just a few minutes from VW Beach. It was cool to visit, but I was a little bothered with all the trash in the mudflats. Shopping carts, tires and chemical barrels littered this otherwise beautiful habitat surrounded by an industrial wasteland.

 

Some birds seen at Windermere Basin were an assortment of ducks, Black bellied Plover, and some small flocks of shorebirds. Many butterflies were around including this Wild indigo Duskywing.

I dropped by Tilbury SL on the way home and was disappointed to find the shorebird area void of any avifauna.

Good birding,
Dwaynejava

Lifer summary:
Parasitic Jaeger 279
Long tailed Jaeger 280

Bonus Video: Full Frame Sanderling