Attempted Meal Steal

This short article features a gull’s attempted meal steal from an egret fishing at one of the ponds at Hendrie Valley. These eight consecutive images were captured handheld using a frame rate of 18 frames-per-second in continuous auto-focus.

Late last week I visited Hendrie Valley with a friend. It is getting pretty late in the season so we weren’t sure what to expect. Luckily there were more than two dozen egrets at one of the ponds. Many of them were actively fishing, probably trying to fatten up before their migration south.

I was spooling into temporary memory some photographs of an egret holding a fish in its bill, when a gull burst into my composition. I instinctively fully depressed my shutter release which enabled me to capture this attempted meal steal.

The eight consecutive images in this attempted meal steal were captured in less than 1/2 second. The birds were approximately 100 metres (~328 feet) away.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS with M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter @ 560 mm, efov 1120 mm, f/9, -0.7 EV, 1/1600, ISO-1250, Pro Capture L, Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking, cropped to 4057 pixels on the width, subject distance 97.3 metres
OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS with M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter @ 560 mm, efov 1120 mm, f/9, -0.7 EV, 1/1600, ISO-1250, Pro Capture L, Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking, cropped to 3986 pixels on the width, subject distance 98.9 metres
OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS with M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter @ 560 mm, efov 1120 mm, f/9, -0.7 EV, 1/1600, ISO-1250, Pro Capture L, Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking, cropped to 3934 pixels on the width, subject distance 103.7 metres
OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS with M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter @ 560 mm, efov 1120 mm, f/9, -0.7 EV, 1/1600, ISO-1250, Pro Capture L, Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking, cropped to 3986 pixels on the width, subject distance 103.2 metres
OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS with M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter @ 560 mm, efov 1120 mm, f/9, -0.7 EV, 1/1600, ISO-1250, Pro Capture L, Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking, cropped to 4026 pixels on the width, subject distance 100 metres
OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS with M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter @ 560 mm, efov 1120 mm, f/9, -0.7 EV, 1/1600, ISO-1250, Pro Capture L, Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking, cropped to 4033 pixels on the width, subject distance 101 metres
OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS with M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter @ 560 mm, efov 1120 mm, f/9, -0.7 EV, 1/1600, ISO-1250, Pro Capture L, Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking, cropped to 4031 pixels on the width, subject distance 103.7 metres
OM-D E-M1X + M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS with M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter @ 560 mm, efov 1120 mm, f/9, -0.7 EV, 1/1600, ISO-1250, Pro Capture L, Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking, cropped to 3823 pixels on the width, subject distance 105.3 metres

I love capturing these types of ‘slice of life’ bird interactions, and view them as gifts from Mother Nature. One never knows what special moments may be waiting for us when we’re out with our cameras!

Technical Note:

Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear as noted in the EXIF data. Images were produced from RAW files using my standard approach in post. I used a combination of Pro Capture L and Bird Detection AI Subject Tracking with these images. I used a single auto-focus point. Pro Capture L was set for 10 Pre-Shutter frames with the Frame Limiter turned off. This is the 1,219 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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2 thoughts on “Attempted Meal Steal”

  1. Great shots!

    Years ago on Hilton Head Island SC I witnessed a meal steal. I was part of a construction crew on our lunch break. One of the men threw a piece of his sandwich out on the ground. One of the nearby watching gulls (probably a ring-billed) picked it up and took off. A fish crow, lingering in the tree-top, swooped in and caused the gull to let go, and the crow caught the morsel in mid-air and left the scene.

    Seagulls frequently hang around people, but in most of the places I have lived, crows keep their distance. Not so in SW Florida. They will alight within feet to grab a piece of food. I don’t know what makes the difference.

    1. Hi Martin,

      Thanks for sharing your experience! I think the difference likely has more to do with how acclimatized with humans the birds have become… although some species do tend to be more skittish than others.

      Tom

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