Shooting boobies, All boobies, Nothing but boobies

While on vacation last week in the Caribbean, I had the chance to shoot some of my favorite subjects: boobies. That's right - boobies...those lovely ocean-going birds that love to follow boats and ships for many miles out to sea (what else could I possibly be talking about?). They're a fun bird-in-flight to shoot, watching them soar beautifully, dive down at the sea and plunge underwater, chasing flying fish that come off the ship's bow wake. One day coming out of St. Maarten in the Dutch Antilles, we had quite a few boobies following our ship, so I decided to spend an hour or so before sunset just photographing some of these elegant birds - both with my A580 & Minolta 300mm F4 APO & matched APO II 1.4x TC, as well as a few more shots with my NEX-5N when I got back to my balcony of my room and saw them still there - using the 55-210mm e-Mount lens and DH1758 1.7x Sony teleextender.



So, for your enjoyment - some boobies:




A soaring brown booby against beautiful clear blue sky




This one was on the sunny side of the ship, and extremely backlit by the sun and glistening ocean waves - but I liked that look




Here, a booby swoops down after a flying fish - he was right on top of the fish, and almost had one fish wing in his mouth, but surprisingly, this fish got away!




Another brown booby up in the blue sky




The top of a brown booby as he made a banking turn




A brown booby coming in towards the ship




The odd color change to the background is because this booby is flying right in front of a big diffuse cloud




I thought I was done shooting boobies, but when I got back to my cabin and looked off the balcony, I noticed they were still at it - plus, I had this bonus of a different type of booby flying by - a masked booby. So I pulled out the NEX and took a few more




Another brown booby moving in front of a big cloud, with the NEX




One last blue sky booby - this is just before sunset and the light was fading...the last shot with the NEX



Comments, questions, critique welcomed as always. Hopefully you enjoyed a bunch of booby shots, as much as I enjoyed taking them!



--
Justin
galleries: www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

Those are no boobies in my language. Show me some next time ;-)

Well done capturing these "boobies" - white and black not to easy as well as moving.

I thought you were going to have some good looking "chasers".

CC

I'm not well versed in doing 'chaser' photos...but since you've honored us with so many, I'll try it this time. My chaser unfortunately doesn't include the front side where the thread title would appear, but the view from the back isn't bad...here's a chaser in St. Maarten, Dutch Antilles:





It's not an official, posed chaser - but still, a nice scene I think.







--
Justin
galleries: www.pbase.com/zackiedawg

Thank you kindly. For you, I've added a chaser too!

Are you saying not all Boobies are alike? I have two different varieties of boobies here...but not the kind you wanted. I'll keep looking out for them!

Nice photos, sharp.

One with flying fish under boobie (what a great name for a bird!) is awesome. White bird must be a gannet?

Thank you on the photos. Indeed, some bird names are very interesting, and one wonders how they came about - the Brits named most birds, and some have rather double-entendre-type names like booby and tit.

I do believe that white bird is a masked booby - northern gannets don't usually have quite as extensive a range of black along the wings, and usually a little color atop the head. Masked boobies can look quite similar, but the black on the wings has me fairly convinced that's what he is.

I give you plus points on the boobies, but where was your zoom when you needed it.

Thanks, I got a kick out of that.

CC

Canadian Club said:

I give you plus points on the boobies, but where was your zoom when you needed it.

Click to expand...

I know, right? I happened to be roaming the island with my NEX, and had my fixed 35mm F1.4 onboard at the time, so that was the lens I needed to use. I can crop a lot more, but I didn't want to be too lewd for this site!

I can confirm that is a Masked Booby. Northern Gannets have black wing tips only, no mask and a buff colored head.

I wanna make a complaint ...

zackiedawg said:

. I can crop a lot more, but I didn't want to be too lewd for this site!

Click to expand...

That gave me a laugh.

As I have mentioned before all I use is the Tamron 18-270, I sure would have been very "lewd" with full zoom.

Life is good - Blue Skies

CC

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The only thing I can think of that may more mind numbingly boring that taking pictures of these birds is looking at pictures of these birds.

Great tits are bike that, you always see them coming.



Best is when they stop and nibble on your nuts hanging in a cage.

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Sorry - wrong boobies I guess?

before someone brought up the tits. Unfortunately, I've never had any opportunity to shoot tits around here - boobies are accessible for me, but tits are few and far between.

Feel free to send some of your tits down my way though - I'd love to finally get a shot of one!