We were waiting at what we hoped would be a great location to photograph African Skimmers against the sun as it came up over the Luangwa River in the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. We got our wish! The intense golden light reflected off the river turned the Skimmer's feathers into glowing psychedelic colors. The tip of the African Skimmers lower mandible is yellow, translucently thin, and sticks out further than the upper part of the beak. The sun coming through the tip of the bill made it look like it was backlit with a high intensity LED.
I took the image with a Canon 7D Mark II with a Canon EF 200 - 400 mm f/4L IS Extender lens. The exposure settings were 1/3200 sec at f/5.6, ISO 640, 560 mm, hand held.
