Dabchicks in Flight

tony
November 7, 2021
birds / New Zealand

Photo of a group of New Zealand Dabchicks/weweia in flight — A group of New Zealand Dabchicks/weweia in flight

Following on from last week’s post on New Zealand Dabchick/weweia I thought I would share another recent experience with them. As with my post about my repaired 500mm f4, I was again out testing a lens that had just returned from being serviced. On this occasion it was the Nikkor AF-S 80-400 f4.5-5.6 ED VR. When paired to a Nikon D500 or other DX sensor camera it provides a viewing angle equivalent to a 120-600mm lens on a full frame camera so is a light and very useful bird setup.

If I hadn’t been wanting to test the lens I wouldn’t have bothered going down to the lake as the conditions were horrible with a strong wind in the wrong direction for the best flight paths. As always there is something to find and on this day it was some Dabchick behaviour that I have not seen before.

Photo of a NZ Dabchick in flight — NZ Dabchick in flight

Dabchicks, like grebes in general, are not frequent fliers and the shots I have of this have been distant record shots of little merit. I have written previously of the good numbers of Dabchicks at the lake and on this occasion a little flotilla of a dozen were bobbing in the waves. While looking for passing Scaup, shags and gulls to test the lens I noticed a little flurry as the Dabchicks took off and flew into the wind before landing and allowing themselves to be blown back to where they had come from.

Photo of NZ Dabchicks approaching splashdown after a flight upwind — NZ Dabchicks approaching splashdown after a flight upwind

Hoping that they may repeat the performance I moved and set up with a lower shooting angle and waited. I was rewarded with 2 more opportunities and managed to grab this series of images. There seemed no purpose to their flight and I assume it was just a group of young birds having fun in the unusual conditions.

Apart from a pleasing set of images it was great to see the lens working perfectly and was a reminder of what a great combo this is. While not quite as sharp as the prime lenses I am used to working with the flexibilty of framing with a zoom is extremely useful. The sharpness is more than adequate with plumage and skin texture details clearly visible in the processed RAW files.

Photos with Nikon D500 and Nikkor AF-S 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 ED VR lens.