2022—Beach Panning, Finally!

Finally, after a couple of days without finding an accessible beach and almost no shorebirds, We left Plymouth and drove north for ninety minutes to the Salisbury Salt Marsh Wildlife Management Area where the tide was receding and the beach was promising, with a few small clusters of shorebirds. We attached out long lenses to our panning plates affixed to Frisbees and laid down in the wet sand to get bird’s eye views of the shorebirds we encountered. This is an immature Piping Plover, pausing for a brief second from scuffing the sand in search of tiny crustaceans. Beach panning is one of my favorite ways to photograph birds because of the unique point of view and the very shallow depth of focus that makes the background disappear. I haven’t had a chance to do it for a couple of years and I was happy to put my new Nikkor Z800 lens to the test. We photographed the birds for a few hours but when the tide began to return and the winds got stronger, we called it quits.

2 thoughts on “2022—Beach Panning, Finally!

  1. Hi Carol, It is good to see you back photographing shore birds again. When you are laying on your belly on the sand remember the tide is coming in. Have fun and keep the photos coming.

  2. Hi Carol so glad you all found a beach with birds. I’m looking forward to the Tampa trip. We’ll need to get together so I can get my beach panning freeie ready and try to wok on laying on my stomach which should be OK but getting up from the sand…OH My, that going to be tricky..🤣
    Have fun talk to you soon, Yvonne

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