Yellow Billed Storks

One of the cool things at Chobe National Park in Botswana is that along the river, just outside of the park and the town of Kasane is a large rookery of yellow billed storks. We normally photo these in early morning before the adults have headed out to feed. The biggest challenge may be for our guide/boat captain as the birds are located in trees in the middle of some small rapids/fast moving water, so keeping the boat steady is his challenge. Luckily, the flat bottom photo boat we use doesn't have a problem with the water depth in this area.

For the photographer, one challenge is BIF, but one can get a lot of practice here. Even though the birds are slow moving, I try to keep the shutter speed over 1/1000 sec. For me, the bigger challenge is that, being early morning light, we really have to push the ISO up at sunrise, but then we can back off as the sun gets higher. Also a challenge once that sun is up is not over exposing the whites. In May/June the white feathers have a pink hue as mating season is just over. In August, the color is more pure white.

Ive never seen these before.
Great captures too.

Great shots, especially the second one. Very interesting birds.

Wonderful captures. Thanks for sharing a rarely seen bird for most of us.

Wow captures. Something I'll probably never see. Thanks so much for sharing!

Neat shots....great IQ, clarity, exposure....and very interesting birds too!

Very nice. This forum is wonderful for showing us birds we would otherwise probably never see.

Quite interesting looking birds. Nice shots - love the second one.

Excellent shots, well done.

Incredible captures! These are really superb.