I especially enjoyed photographing White-tailed Tropicbirds on Kauai, during a trip to Hawaii this summer. These beautiful birds move fast and can be a challenge to photograph but I snapped several photos that I really liked and wanted to share them.

In the United States, White-tailed Tropicbirds are primarily found in Hawaii. These shots were taken from the grass in front of our condo in the Poipu area of Kauai. There was a rocky cliff that ran down from the lawn in front of the condo to the ocean and I believe that the Tropicbirds had a nest hidden in the cliff’s rocks. The birds would disappear behind the bushes on the cliff face and stay there for long stretches of time. It was great to be able to take just a few steps from the patio and do some bird photography!

Both of these photos were shot with a Nikon 300 mm f4 lens and a 1.4x teleconverter. The Tropicbirds would soar overhead and then dive to the cliff or ocean below and sometimes were so close that my 420 mm lens combo was too much lens.

Kauai is a great spot for bird photography and White-tailed Tropicbirds are one of the highlights. I’ll follow up this post with a future one that shows some of the amazing birds that I photographed at the Kilauea Point Lighthouse, another highlight of the trip.