Piping Plover: York County, Maine, USA, June 2024 — The first of our protected Piping Plover nests have hatched, and the tiny chicks are running around on the beach…never too far from mom or dad, but getting more and more adventurous, and harder for the the adults to contain or protect. The first image is a composite, to show just how small the chicks are. Both adult and chick are in the same shot, just as they are in this image, but of course they are in different focal planes and only the adult is in focus. I lifted the chick out of a shot where it was the subject and therefor in focus and sized it exactly to fit over the out of focus chick…again, just to give you an accurate impression of the size of the chick. If you know plovers you know what the adult is only about 5 inches long, so the chicks are truly tiny 🙂 They are also very curious, and though I was well outside the protected area on the open beach, I stood still just long enough so one had to come over to check me out. It only stopped a few feet from my feet, and by then I did not dare to move until it moved off. So I have a frame-filling close up. I don’t think it was as impressed by me as I was by it. I am not nearly that cute (or at least my shoes aren’t. OM System OM-1 with M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Photomator (composite assembled in Pixomatic.)