I was walking along a remote desolate beach today accompanied with my Olympus OM-D E-M1 Micro Four Thirds camera and my trusty Olympus mZD 40-150mm f/2.8 lens, not really knowing what I would find.

The beach has protected areas to keep the endangered Hooded Plovers safe from beach goers as they can easily trample on the eggs or scare the young into hiding where they may die as the young are not able to fly away.

Beach goers are required to stay on the water edge to avoid disturbing them so I have do intention of shooting them – otherwise I would have taken the heavier Olympus mZD 300mm f/4 lens along instead.

Unexpectedly, this adult Hooded Plover (aka Hooded Dotterel or Thinornis cucullatus) came running along the sand as they do down to the water’s edge just in front of me allowing me to get a couple of quick shots in while he/she stood still – which is not a common thing as they tend to continually run around looking for food.

Even at 300mm equivalent focal length reach in full frame terms, the small bird at that distance still looks pretty small in the frame, and so this image has been severely cropped to show you what one of these lovely birds look like in the wild.

Yes, it is not a ground breaking exciting image of a bird in flight with the sun’s reflection in its eyes and a catch of the day in the beak, but it is more of a sentimental ambience as he looks out to sea.

Note he has been tagged as this species which is endemic to southern Australia and Tasmania is endangered as a result of:

• human Summer beach going activities as this species breeds with a clutch of 1–3 eggs is laid from August to March, which is also the peak of the Austral summer tourist season with disturbance from dogs and horses on beaches.
• predation by Silver Gulls, ravens and introduced foxes