Flamingos in Line

We headed south from our gite this afternoon, to the edge of the Mediterranean. There we found large numbers of flamingos, many clustered together, and most a few hundred meters away. I took several dozen shots of this group--there were many more on either side, all in constant motion. This image seemed the most nicely composed. These are Greater Flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber), the largest and most widespread of the flamingos. Best viewed large. Here is a single flamingo from our last visit to the Camargue two years ago.

Edit: (From my email commentator): The "flamingo necks are amazing and remind me of their use as croquet mallets in Alice in Wonderland!"

We were disappointed to find very few shorebirds(waders), and also almost no migrating passerines, in contrast to our earlier experience. But returning north we were pleased to find at least a dozen black-winged stilts in a pond by the road--previously we had seen only a few fly-bys.

For this shot I used my biggest lens (400 mm), with a doubler (x 2); with the 1D Mark III's crop factor of x 1.3 that yields the equivalent of 1040 mm. This is my usual equipment for birds, often hand-held, as here.