Gray-backed Tern (Sterna lunata), Midway Atoll.

Gray-backed Tern (Sterna lunata), Midway Atoll. A fairly difficult species to get a decent picture of, I found. It seems that some bird species are not too bothered by the photographer who approaches in a quiet, slow, non threatening manner, but this species tended to be rather skittish and wouldn’t tolerate a close approach. Shot at a focal length of 700mm (the 500mm with a 1.4x converter), the image still required significant cropping to get to get this final result. The degree of cropping presented its own challenges as regards to processing the image, particular care was neccessary in the application of noise reduction and sharpening! ~KD.