This article features a number of images of a surface diving gull captured handheld using Bird Detection AI and Pro Capture L with an E-M1X.

I haven’t been out with my camera as much as I would have liked lately, so I headed down to Grimsby harbour to get a little practice in. After photographing a few gulls in flight using Bird Detection AI in combination with Pro Capture L, I decided to focus on them landing and doing other less common behaviours.

In amongst the many gulls that were floating on the surface of the water, I noticed a couple that seemed to be using a surface diving technique… likely for fishing.

I decided to watch this behaviour with the objective of learning when to anticipate which gulls would use this surface diving approach… and hopefully capture some photographs of the action.

All of the photographs in this article are displayed as full frame captures without any cropping as I thought this would put the subject gulls in better context for readers.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

I quickly discovered that different birds used variations of the surface diving technique. Some, like the gull illustrated below, would barely break the surface of the water before diving. In some cases the action happened so quickly I could barely capture it. The four consecutive images below were captured in a total of 0.22 seconds.

Other gulls would rise further up in the air before plunging back down with their attempt at surface diving. The next 11 consecutive photographs show a gull using that higher approach. I was using 18 frames-per-second with Pro Capture L. The following 11 frames were captured in a total of 0.6 seconds.

Often the same bird would repeat its surface diving behaviour. The next series of consecutive photographs of a gull using the surface diving technique was my best image run from my afternoon visit to Grimsby harbour.  These 11 images were captured in a total of 0.6 seconds.

Some photographers would not bother trying to capture images of very common birds like gulls. When I’m out with my camera with the intention of getting in some regular practice, I’m happy to photograph anything that Mother Nature happens to send my way. Even common birds can do interesting things.

Once again my E-M1X with Pro Capture was up to the task.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear as noted in the EXIF data. Images were produced from RAW files using my standard process. All images are displayed as full frame captures without any crops. This is the 1,072nd article published on this website since its original inception.

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