Greater Flamingos At Ludo

After a great week visiting, I dropped my sister and niece at Faro airport very early yesterday morning so used the opportunity to visit Ludo at sunrise to back-light the Greater Flamingos.

Rather than re-write information about these magnificent birds, you can read an article I wrote for the Algarve Resident last year (Read here…).

Currently there are a huge number of Greater Flamingos gathered at Ludo and after short wait a small group started to argue which gave the perfect scene directly into the sun.

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📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 @ 1/800sec, f/8, ISO560

Next up a solitary bird that I underexposed to silhouette with a little back-light lighting the edges.

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/2500sec, f/8, ISO110

Once the sun had risen a little more I snapped these next shots, first up a juvenile Greater Flamingo (the pink colouring comes with age)

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/1000sec, f/8, ISO200

This next photo I gave up waiting for them all to stand in the typical Flamingo pose so went for all 4 in a different pose instead

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/1250sec, f/8, ISO200

This next shot made me laugh, there were 3 Black-headed Gulls following this Greater Flamingo around like it was their mother, but I suspect it was because it was disturbing the fish and they were after an easy meal.

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/2500sec, f/8, ISO400

Then I concentrated on some flight shots.

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/2500sec, f/8, ISO280

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/2500sec, f/8, ISO280

Apart from the Greater Flamingos there was a lot of bird activity as you’d expect at Ludo. The Black-winged Stilts were making their usual noisy presence heard.

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/2000sec, f/11, ISO640

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/1250sec, f/8, ISO180

The reason for all the noise? They had a youngster.

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/1250sec, f/8, ISO200

On the way back to the car I spotted a Ruddy Turnstone busy foraging in the sandy mud where the tide was retreating.

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 with Nikon TC14E III 1.4x Teleconverter (giving 700mm) @ 1/1250sec, f/10, ISO720

As usual, the retreating tide exposed thousands of Fiddler Crabs, I will be writing a separate blog post about these, but here is a male with it’s single large claw which is normal for these very odd Crabs.

📷 Nikon D850, AF-S 500mm f/4 @ 1/1250sec, f/8, ISO250

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