Arc of a diver

Today was slightly colder than yesterday but with much better light, so this morning I took the camera and went walking along the Avon in Stratford, looking for birds. There was no sign of last Friday's goosanders, unsurprisingly, and sadly the tufted duck count is now down to four males. I doubt that these will stick either: three of them looked quite unhappy, and were shadowing each other closely, mostly right in the middle of the river. The fourth, on the other hand, was very bold - hunting just off the Bancroft wharf in the midst of a group of fairly irritable mute swans, which he frequently had to dodge as they pecked at him.

I spent quite a while, and a great many shutter clicks, trying to catch one of his dives at the point when his bill was in the water but his eyes were still visible. I didn't succeed, despite the fact that you can easily tell when tufted ducks are going to dive because they rear a little way up out of the water with their heads pulled back, so in theory all I had to do then was hold focus on his eye and shoot on burst. I was shooting at moderate speed though, using the mechanical shutter, rather than taking advantage of the full 20fps the R5 can achieve via the electronic shutter. And despite the fact that this isn't the image I was aiming to achieve, I think it's still interesting enough to be worth posting, in that it shows the arc of a tuftie's dive, and gives a sense of the speed and strength of these little ducks.

My favourite gull of the day is flying over on Facebook, if you'd care to take a look.