Stingrays - r neat!

I was down near the wharf area today and noticed a couple of stingrays in the lagoon where the rowers do rowing stuff (I know fuck all about rowing) - so I went home, grabbed a digital camera (not an obvious choice for me) and a polariser so as I could see under the water. Can you see the ray in this shot?

 

 It's not terribly obvious even at full zoom, but the tail sticking above the water level is as good a hint as the dark shape - if you did get it then don't congratulate yourself to heartily - there's about 7 - 10 rays in that shot.

  Like this chappie - taken from the same angle, but close up - it's not terribly impressive looking in this shot - that's what a 28mm does at a bit over 2 meters.

 

Zooming in a little does it more justice - it's about 75cm across I guess (fairly large - they get a bit over a meter in my experience), maybe slightly more - the waters about half a meter deep in that spot - as you can see (zoomed in) it was having a feed and tolerating me so long as I didn't make any sudden moves - I was maybe 2 meters away and skylined - it was watching me quite obviously - I was close enough to see that it was looking at me.

 After a bit it decided it had had enough of me and turned around and buggered off - they are astoundingly maneuverable for their size - they can effortlessly turn in their own body length from a standstill.

  

 As I walked back a waka pulled in and a guy jumped off - right inbetween about 3 stingrays - I quietly pointed them out to him and he hopped back into the waka - quite calmly as it happened - he was about 10cm from touching one of them - bonus points for cool :D - They were little ones, but they still could have probably hurt a person - they were maybe 30 - 40cm across.

 

 This last one was just perfectly happy to be photographed - it's maybe 40 - 50cm across - and made a point of just ignoring me - I saw some people photographing it after I had moved along.

Stingrays are neat - that is all :D