Beaver Tail Slapping

[billklipp]

Delta Wanderings – Beaver Tail Slap
It alludes me no more
Tail Slapping is a common behavior of both male and female Beavers when they sense danger, such as a predator or a human near their den, they smack the water with their large, flat tails to convey danger or aggression. This loud noise alerts other Beavers to hide or be cautious. Capturing tail slaps with a still camera is incredibly challenging as it happens without any discernable warning and is incredibly fast. But with the newer technology in mirrorless cameras, I have now become reasonably proficient in capturing and stopping this super fast action.

Over the last 30 years taking wildlife photos in and around the California Delta my biggest challenge has been to capture a Beaver Tail Slap Sequence. Tail Slapping is a common behavior of both male and female Beavers when they sense danger, such as a predator or a human near their den, they smack the water with their large, flat tails to convey danger or aggression. This loud noise alerts other Beavers to hide or be cautious. Capturing tail slaps is incredibly challenging as it happens without any discernable warning and is incredibly fast. While over the years I have captured a few partial tail slaps getting a full sequence has eluded me, but no more with “Pre-capture”.

To capture these shots I set my Nikon Z9 to pre-capture burst mode with a Nikkor 180-600mm lens at 250mm, f5.6, and 1/3,200 sec. This resulted in about 100 still frames taken in just over 1 second. I then took the still images and made a short video of my last couple of Beaver tail slap encounters. Got to love pre-capture.
Link to YouTube Beaver Tail Slap Video:

It's funny we travel from the high Arctic to Antarctica to photograph wildlife but one of my favorite wildlife photo challenges happens in my Delta backyard.