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p.1 #1 · Male Hooded Merganser vs. Lobster-size Crayfish
Congratulations to AGeoJO for winning Feature Thread of the Week with 16 votes - View Previous Winners
When I arrived at the location, there was a friendly fellow lady photographer already there. She told me that one of the female mergansers caught a crayfish but she couldn’t hang on to it and had to let it go. There were 2 male and several female mergansers that morning.
I followed a male merganser as it swam up and down the fairly big pond, taking pictures of him and the colorful reflected background. Then I noticed that it started diving. He surfaced without anything after the first 2 dives and at the 3rd dive, I noticed that there was some struggle under water and then he surfaced with a big crayfish in its beak. And the crayfish was about the size of a small lobster! In the beginning the crayfish tried to break loose but the grip of the determined merganser was too much for the crayfish.
Then the merganser tried to remove the legs and especially the two main pinchers of the crayfish by grabbing at them and shaking violently sideways back and forth for several seconds, it then took a breather and started again and again. The position of the merganser changed from sideways to frontal, to facing away from me and back again. Until finally, it was able to swallow the crayfish and even then, it took him 3 tries to do so. It was really a big crayfish even after the legs and pinchers were broken off.
During the struggle, the merganser drifted from fairly well lit area to a more shaded spot and then to a more sunlit area. There are many angles, position, different lighting conditions but generally the lighting conditions were subdued to my chagrin. The resulting ISO settings were up there in order to keep a fairly high shutter speed all the time.
In total, the entire process took place for 6+ minutes and the merganser looked pretty exhausted after that. Although I captured the entire scene at 10FPS but the buffer became full and I noticed that the rate dropped. Still, I ended up taking almost 1,100 images that morning of the struggle, showing different angles, various positions, different lighting conditions, etc. It took me a while to select and edit the images. And here are only 8 of them after the merganser surfaced with the crayfish until it pushed the prey down the hatch. I had to try hard to limit the number to just 8 out of quite a few keepers.
Please feel free to leave any feedback and thank you very much for looking,
Joshua
p.1 #2 · Male Hooded Merganser vs. Lobster-size Crayfish
Wonderful set, Joshua. I don't think these little grebes like swallowing the big front claws so they seem to go through a real effort to break them off. Maybe the exit hole is too small relative to the entry hole, and if they are unable to break down the claws in their gizzards the exit could be painful.
p.1 #5 · Male Hooded Merganser vs. Lobster-size Crayfish
Unbelievable series, Joshua! I would always prefer to see a set such as this that may have been shot under less-than-ideal conditions but depicts such incredible behavior. You certainly worked the light and angles well and these are processed and presented in your signature style. Just wonderful 👍!
p.1 #6 · Male Hooded Merganser vs. Lobster-size Crayfish
Amazing shots Joshua ! It's very rare to see a mix of amazing behavior along with artistic beauty. You've managed to capture both in one shot. Really, really well done ! YGMV
Gary
p.1 #9 · Male Hooded Merganser vs. Lobster-size Crayfish
Nope I'm not going to settle for 8 out 1100 I want to see them all
First, I just voted, 2nd these are like Holy Grail material for me Joshua. This is a beautiful and amazing sequence, love the action, poses and colors! Delightfully presented, I be enjoying this series a few times over, fabulous
p.1 #14 · Male Hooded Merganser vs. Lobster-size Crayfish
KCollett wrote:
Wonderful set, Joshua. I don't think these little grebes like swallowing the big front claws so they seem to go through a real effort to break them off. Maybe the exit hole is too small relative to the entry hole, and if they are unable to break down the claws in their gizzards the exit could be painful.
Thank you very much, Ken! The claws of that particular crayfish are not only big, and maybe too big for the hatch of the merganser but they can pose a real danger to the merganser. And you are correct about the extra thick shell of the claws would be difficult to be broken down. I couldn't even image what it had to go through had the merganser left the claws intact after digestion... .
dallvr wrote:
Wow, Joshua! Despite the challenge of the lighting you got great photos of an epic battle.
Thank you very much, Shirley. I am glad you like the images.
dallvr wrote:
YGMV. You mentioned high ISO but the photos look noiseless, so your noise reduction was very effective.
Thank you for your vote, Shirley! The ISO setting ranged from IS0 5000 to 8000 that morning.
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I just came back for more from the same location and @Bobbytan and @Fred Amico came with me this time as they wanted to see some mergansers's action. The lighting conditions since the action took place earlier, were even dimmer. Most of the time my ISO setting was 12800. The presence of crayfish apparently spread around among mergansers. There are more there this morning; 4 males and 7-8 females. They did hunt and did catch crayfish again but the conditions were not as good as last Saturday and the size of the crayfish was nothing compared to the big one from last week.
p.1 #19 · Male Hooded Merganser vs. Lobster-size Crayfish
It will be hard (if not impossible) to beat this, Joshua, as this is as good as it gets! They are technically excellent and it’s quite impossible for you to top this ... so don’t bother going back there with Fred and I. YGMV!
p.1 #20 · Male Hooded Merganser vs. Lobster-size Crayfish
mitesh wrote:
Unbelievable series, Joshua! I would always prefer to see a set such as this that may have been shot under less-than-ideal conditions but depicts such incredible behavior. You certainly worked the light and angles well and these are processed and presented in your signature style. Just wonderful 👍!
Thank you very much, Mitesh! The circumstances fell into their places that morning and I got lucky to get the cooperation of the merganser but I am not sure about any cooperation from the crayfish though .
sum1sgrampa wrote:
Amazing shots Joshua ! It's very rare to see a mix of amazing behavior along with artistic beauty. You've managed to capture both in one shot. Really, really well done ! YGMV
Gary
Gary, I certainly appreciate your kind words, sir! I am happy you like'm! And thank you for your vote!
dclark wrote:
Terrific series of photos!
Technically excellent images but the excellence of the images is in the story they tell.
What a struggle it is to survive.
Dave
Dave, thank you very much for your kind compliments! I got lucky that morning...
I want to see them all
.