BIRDER ALERT: Ultra-Rare Species Mating on NYC Rooftop (PHOTOS)
By Michael Vazquez C. 2019 @MusicFestivalStreetPhotography
Herewith, a 5-photo sequence of one of the rarest birds in the world, mating.
GEAR USED: Canon 1DX MK II, Canon 70–200 f2.8 IS III USM
Process notes on this are simple: I was keen to try the remastered Canon 70–200 f2.8 IS III USM, which was released last June, in a two-model update to the lens that is universally lauded as a photographer’s best friend (and with which I was unfamiliar, until now). I was just going to shoot flags, water towers and the Empire State Building from my rooftop, to see what out-of-camera JPEGs looked like. Accordingly, I didn’t have my Canon 1DX MK II set to capture 16 frames a second, nor set to RAW, which is a rarity for me.
And so, given that I shot this sequence one manual shutter-click at a time, and didn’t get close enough to my subjects to fill the frame, I had no idea that I would capture such fast-moving action, nor achieve this level of detail from a zoomed, cropped JPEG.
As someone who never crops his images, I was thoroughly giddy to see that my quick test-shots had netted me usable images from such a strong crop. Especially since, like always, I didn’t use professional photo editing software, but instead MS Word, which is my SOP, giving any camera and lens that I’m testing, the harshest circumstances under which to prove their image quality.
Nonetheless, thanks to a couple of exhibitionist love-birds and a stomach-butterflies-inducing phenomenally sharp lens, what should have been a ho-hum, rooftop test-photos session turned into an X-Rated episode of Nat Geo, when these two alighted about twenty feet away, on either side of me, almost immediately after I arrived. First, I quickly snapped a shot of each.
Almost on-cue, after I’d photographed each bird, the male fluttered over to the female, and started chuffing.
The female pigeon exhibited her receptiveness — note the cloaca…
When I enlarged the image, I was surprised to have such clear shots of the cloaca (see image above), which is a multi-purpose orifice found on both the male and female, and utilized by their digestive, urinary and reproductive tracts. All birds, reptiles, fish and some mammals have one. When pigeons mate, the two orifices come into contact, and the male inseminates the female, after which they often fly away, though the exchange may be repeated to ensure insemination.
…and they connected.
Fearing that I might have scared them off— because it lasted all of three seconds (please no comments from any ex-GFs) before they flew away — I went online and read that, no, rather like many humans, the sex is super-quick, nets, on average, 2.5 kids, and they’re stuck with each other ’til death to them part…though sometimes, the husband has affairs, as does the female, albeit, far less often than the male.
And so, before I could roll the proverbial boom-chicka-wahka, and cue-up the domestic anti-climax anthem, “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” they’d already increased the NYC pigeon population by between 1 to 3 more birds — apparently in about twelve weeks, ensuring that the hardy, scrappy, ever-resourceful Columba livia domestica will remain on the “Least Concern” end of the spectrum in the Extinction Threat-Level list.
I love my hometown, and I’m so grateful for this gift from Nature, and also to know that my happenstance zoological pictorial didn’t interrupt a natural process, (though in all fairness twixt NYC frenemies, these two would have no problem messin’ with me whilst I’m trying to eat a damn sandwich on a park bench). And so, I’m happy I could share these shots with, if I may now call myself so, fellow birders.
Godspeed, my fine feathered frenemies. Should one of your offspring be male, I think Michael’s a pretty good name.
File under: birder instant-replay (see images below). This is a side-by-side look at the original test shots, taken from a considerable distance, and the subsequent well-detailed crops this lens yielded. NOTE: These are out-of-camera JPEGs, and a reminder of why I shoot with a full-frame camera and the best lens I can afford. For those of you just starting out, Canon has recently released the world’s lowest-priced full-frame camera, giving a new generation of photographers an essential leveling-up in performance at a consumer-friendly price.
And, as previously noted in these pages, there is a compelling array of first-rate lenses available via Canon’s refurbished program, which is chock full of highly affordable options that shouldn’t be overlooked. I’ve personally used a refurbished EF 70–300mm f/4.5–5.6 DO IS USM compact zoom, which, for all intents and purposes was same-as-new, and came with a one-year warranty. You can see images HERE.
Original photos, immediately followed by cropped detail:
ALL PHOTOS BY MICHAEL VAZQUEZ C. 2019 @MUSICFESTIVALSTREETPHOTOGRAPHY