Through sloppyness or too many other commitments I missed most of the wader migration this season, which is why there are just about only dunlin photos from this autumn. But having said that, shooting dunlins is good fun too, and I thought these turned out alright.

I was kayaking with friends in the far western reaches of the Limfjord, a strait (and not a fjord) separating the tip of Jutland from the rest of the peninsula. At one point we came across a flock of dunlins, and I got out of the boat to start the long crawl to within shooting range with the 300mm lens, mounted with the extender on my 5D mkii. Fortunately the dunlins kept their part of the bargain and stayed around for long enough to get some nice images.

The IQ of the 300mm/extender combo never ceases to impress – this lens is my personal STRONG recommendation to new wildlife photographers with limited funds to burn. I was less than 2m from these birds, and would have missed the shots if I had been carrying the good old 400mm f5.6 Canon lens, with its 3.5m close focus limit.

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The dunlins are already in winter plumage except for one bird in this lot. Didn’t get any nice shots of him though.

I must have shot close to 300 frames just to make sure I had something worthwhile with me home.

A close-up experiment. I like it…

They were, truth be told, mostly resting. This little one is doing some half-hearted foraging.

Notice the two birds at the bottom right of the frame, mirroring each other. No photoshopping applied.