Low-flying Common Eider

The Common Eider was the reason for me to wake up at 5 am. I wanted to capture photos of low-flying Common Eider’s over the water surface. That was my reasoning behind the early morning on “Good Friday.”

Glommen in Halland is the place I visit on the West Coast of Sweden when I want to take pictures of sea birds in their normal habitat. I can find the Common Eider much closer to home, but I think Glommen is much better as you get the open sea as background and not an archipelago like the one we have here in Gothenburg.

I had another reasoning behind the visit to Glommen and that was to work with slow shutter speed during the early hour. A slow shutter means more light will come into the camera resulting in overexposed pictures if the sun is completely up. You can of course compensate for this with a negative exposure compensation, but I think I get the best results when I use the first light of the day for this type of photography.

So did the plan work out for me?

Well sort of, I guess.

I got the photos of the Common Eider that I wanted. Maybe not all that I had in mind, but at least I got some to show here. The activity was sporadic and for periods I could only see birds far-out at sea.

I had seated myself at a place where I could watch birds coming both from north and south. It might have been a little too far away at times, but I also had Common Eider’s passing just over my head. I consider using my hide next time.

Due to the low activity I only got a couple of tries with slow shutter photography, but I must say that I am really pleased with the picture of the Velvet Scoter pair.

It could have been a little crisper in sharpness, but I really like the soft water couple with the pinkish background as the sun hasn´t come up fully yet. A nice try and one I hopefully can build on for coming sessions at Glommen.

Please enjoy the gallery.

Photo Gallery: Common Eider Photography