About the Image(s)

I love photographing Albatrosses - one of the joy of cruising around the southern parts of South America. They are all big birds - some are huge. I learned during our trip in these waters earlier this year that there are over 20 different types. The largest volume are these (black-bowed) - over 1.4 million, mostly off Argentina and Chile. We saw many thousand - sometimes many hundred at one time. These are far from the largest ones - but have a quirky eye shape. As they live at sea (only returning to land for breeding), they drink salt water - hence the salt gland by their beak which filters excess salt out of their bloodstream.

This chap was flying early around sunrise in the Beagle Channel by Ushuaia (the most southern city). The early morning sun caught the mostly dark wings as you can see.

It was taken with my Olympus wildlife gear at 525mm (FF equivalent 1,050) using the 150-400 f4.5 lens, its internal 1.25 extender plus a 1.4 added extender [birds never seem to fly close!] at 1/2,000 f8 ISO 12,800.

PP - I started in Topaz to double the pixels, when process in LCR.

I am also in the Bird Group 91 and I have included another Albatross image there if interested.