A Mothers Love

As you may have noticed from my previous postings, the prolonged lockdown has resulted in me confined to either back garden photography or the local park.  However, it provided me with the opportunity to observe nature around me in more detail and see how birds behave and develop.  I was lucky enough to witness two adult swans mating at the lake in my local park a very short distance from my house (see post March 28th) and in May I was able to see the product of the encounter.  It was so nice to see the two cygnets being cared for by their parents and observe that even at a young age, a difference in their personalities is clear.  

This photo shows the mum embracing the more courageous cygnet, who was happy to pop out from under the feathers as the other hid deep below.   It is one of my favourites.  It was was taken in the evening with a shutter speed of 1/1000 sec., an aperture of f/8, and ISO 1000.  I had my 100-400mm Canon lens at 188mm and ensured under-exposure of a couple of stops to prevent the mum's feathers being blown.  Despite that, it required a lot of processing in Lightroom to reduce the stark white in the mum’s body-feathers, which were dominating the image and distracting from the cygnet and mum's neck.