Birds as art

On many occasions things happen so quickly, one can barely witness that one moment of beauty.

It was a cold day during winter and i stumbled upon a pond and saw a few Eurasian Coots.
I noticed one place that seemed to be very nice to make some photographs from those birds. But first i had to look and study their behaviour a bit.

It did not took long before i noticed one Coot always came into that sweet spot where the setting/background/distance would be awesome. There was almost no wind so a bit of a reflection would be cool 2. I knew it would be somewhat challenging to capture some action images from that species....

When they dive (they jump) under water to come back up with some alges to feed on them. I tought... hmm. That would be awesome to capture. And i had the best beautiful orange/brown calm scene in front of my nose to do that. I just needed one coöperative Coot to come right into that area and do what i wanted it to do.

So there i lay on (a frozen) ground, belly flat. After 1 hour my back already started to hurt laying there. The Coot came and went... I took my time.

To be honest. I made lots of images... over 3 days :) hahaha. It was like a drive to go back and try again and again. The images above. I consider it as one of best/finest images i ever took.

After the Coot made his dive he came back up with some alges. The twitching of his head made waterdrops coming of the alges surrounding this bird.

It's a moment that one can barely witness in real time.
I'm glad to share those waterdrops moment with you. ... Have a great day.

I do take image quality quite serious. If i fail the focus or it is not the quality i'm looking for it's a failed image. :) This next image is a large crop from the head and drops. As you can see the detail in those feathers and eye. :) This crop is for @Dboontje :)