Dark waters, white beak, red eye.
At Park Sonsbeek in Arnhem, I spotted something white moving on the dark pond surface. For a second I thought, “what is that?” — and then it hit me. A coot! An Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra, Dutch: Meerkoet). These little water birds always look like they’re in formal wear — black suit, white tie, red eyes, and serious attitude.
The water here was unusually dark, absorbing almost all light. My camera’s metering system had no idea what to do with it and kept pushing the ISO sky-high. So I switched to full manual mode: shutter at 1/250s, aperture f/7.1, ISO locked at 2500. The Canon 5D Mark IV with the Sigma 100–400mm lens handled it beautifully. No flashy post-processing here — just careful exposure control and a bit of patience.
I love how the black feathers blend nearly invisibly into the dark water, leaving only that bright beak and red eye cutting through the scene. It’s one of those moments where light, contrast, and instinct all meet. What a hoot… or should I say, what a coot!
Photography, after all, is just another way of studying light and life.
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Willem Jakobs and Pieter Drift
Maikel de Bakker
Leendert Douma