National Geographic Your Shot Selection!

Thrilled to have one of my favorite images selected today by National Geographic editors for Your Shot's "Daily Dozen".  It is quite an honor since thousands of images are submitted daily!  I don't think I would want the job however of sifting through them all on a daily basis, so I thank them for spotting and for selecting mine.

The image was taken at Port Lockroy, Antarctica while on assignment with G Adventures in March. I noticed a pair of gentoo penguins on a rocky area next to the now famous Port Lockroy post office and stood and watched them as a parent was attempting to feed it's persistently begging offspring.  Every now and then however, a pesky sheathbill would swoop down in an attempt to catch a piece of the food the parent would regurgitate.  So how to capture this?

I increased my shutter speed to 1/2000s to freeze the action and made sure I had an aperture of f/8 with a wide enough depth of field to hopefully get both the penguins and the bird in focus.  I made sure I focused on the head of the adult penguin and waited.  Each time the sheathbill flew in, I fired off a few shots.  After several attempts at capturing the repetitive behavior, I managed to get this shot.