Page 3 Norbert Schuster

Great Crested Grebes at the Ruhr River by Norbert Schuster

The Ruhr River flows through the largest urban agglomeration in Germany. This area, which is called the Ruhrgebiet, was the heavy industrial center of Germany.

Surprisingly there is something to do for a nature photographer in this highly populated area!


Nowadays the Ruhr River is rather clean and rich of fish so that there are quite a lot of water birds, like Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea), Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus), Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) and Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo). There are also the Common Coot (Fulica atra), Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) and the Nutria (Myocastor coypus).


For a few years I have been watching and photographing the Great Crested Grebes when they are nesting and raising their chicks.

Unfortunately this year only one chick grew up. The nest of the Grebes was destroyed several times or occupied by coots.

For the first time I tried to take the pictures from a rather low point of view so that my tripod and myself had to stand in the river with the lens roughly 20 cm above the water. I was too cautious about my lenses to go even lower.

I took the pictures with a Nikon D700 at ISO 800 with matrix metering and exposure compensation of -1 EV. I used my new AF-S VR 600 mm lens and for greater flexibility the AF-S VR Zoom 200-400 mm with a TC-14E II.


Norbert Schuster