A couple weeks ago I made an attempt to photograph the Purple Sandpiper flock that hangs out along the coastline at Cape Spear, Newfoundland. Sadly during that outing the waves were too intense for the Purples to find a safe place to land in their usual spots so unfortunately I came away with nothing.
When I returned home and looked back at my previous images of Purple Sandpipers I realized it had been 5 years since I had last photographed them. This light a fire under me and I was now on a missing to photograph them once again. After a two week long flu/cold I finally got the energy to head back to Cape Spear.
The weather network was calling for only a 30% chance of snow right at sunrise and then it was suppose to be clear skies shortly there after..well lets just say they were way off and for the next hour myself and the purples were pounded by snow squalls…below is an image of one of the approach squalls.
Probably one of the easiest ways to locate the Purple Sandpiper flock among the rugged coastline is to wait for the waves to crash against the rocks driving them to wing..
Then once they settle you can slowly make your way down to them..I do want to point out that at this location you need to always have one eye on the waves..this is not the safest location and on most days there are waves that can easily drag you out to sea.
When I finally made my way down to the flock (See if you can spot them in the iPhone image below)
it was difficult to capture any isolated images as the group kept tight together and braced the elements…this poor guy in the middle got a face full of snow
On occasion one or two would move out in front of the pack and provided me with some nice photo ops
The surrounding wet rocks made for a nice dark background to show off the falling snow.
During one of the many squalls I had a Purple isolated from the group and I decided to play with some shutter speeds to see what different snow effects I could get. The first image you see below is at 1/800s while the second image of the exact same bird and scene was taking at 1/30s (handheld and its sharp so dont let anyone tell you have to shot at 1/500s or greater for a 500mm lens to get a sharp image)…which do you prefer?
Nearing the end of my outing a smaller group of 5 individuals flew in close to the main group of 35 and as they approached I got the opportunity to capture this wider composition which I thought worked well with the dark tones of the surrounding rocks.
All in all it was a great outing and after two weeks of feeling sick I really needed a good dose of nature..lets just say I was one happy photographer
