Yet another visit to the Barnegat Bay Lighthouse on Feb 12, 2013. This day was no different weather wise as it was very cold and windy. The wind was kicking up pretty good somewhere around 50mph. With the wind, some waves were rolling in pretty quickly into the wind with mist flying off the tops of the waves. Even though it was rather windy, I did manage to see some hundrred plus Common Eiders that day. Another first that day was seeing a Great Black-backed Gull catching and eating a Fluke. It was very interesting watching the Gull eat the fish. You can see some photos of the Gull eating the fish below.
List of species seen:
Common Eider
Harlequin
Oldsquaw
Bufflehead
Brant
Great Black-backed Gull
twng32 
I can’t decide which is my favorite but I am very partial to the long-tailed ducks. Nice.
Thanks Mike! The Harlequins are my favorite but the Longtails are pretty cool.
these are gorgeous Terrance…it is too difficult to choose a favourite but the mist off the waves, the shells, and the birds in flight certainly are among my favs…you have a real knack for catching the birds in flight! I do have to say the male Harlequin bird is beautiful…they definitly are a favourite bird of mine, even though I’ve never seen one.
Thanks Heather! The Harlequins are most people’s favorite too. They are very common here in the winter and people all over the world come here to see them. I would never have thought my little town was famous for anything hahaha!
Great photos Terrence! So glad to see another keen birder out there, and who has mastered the art of catching birds in flight! Cheers 🙂
Thanks Kiwigal! I haven’t quite mastered the in-flight photography yet but am pleased you liked the photos.
100+ eiders must have been quite a sight. They are my favourite birds! Great photos.
Thanks for visiting. Yes, 100+ Eiders was very cool to see. I only saw them that one time but it was a day to remember especially seeing that many in one spot.
Great bird shots. Photographing birds in flight is not as easy as it looks, but eventually we’ll get it (with practise).
If you’ve got a good DSLR, try shooting on the ‘sports’ mode. I’ve been more successful using that for ‘flying’ birds.
Thanks for stopping by. I am new to photographing birds and the in flight ones are tricky. I do use different settings when shooting in flight birds to see which I like better. I use between aperature priority and manual settings. Thanks for the tip using sports setting, I will have to try that next time I go out.
I upgraded to a new camera and lens so I have to start all over again as the new camera is light years ahead of my old one and I have to learn the new camera settings/menus. My old camera settings/menus were quite simple compared to the new camera. Way too many settings/menus on the new one to thumb through and the instruction manual is very vague. I will eventually learn the new menus one day 🙂