Haverhill woman wins prize for 'Beach Baby' photo
Mar. 7—HAVERHILL — Kathy Diamontopoulos' photo of a tiny bird was chosen as the grand prize winner of Essex Heritage's 2020 People's Choice photo awards.
Diamontopoulos, a Haverhill resident, captured her photo, "Beach Baby," of a plover chick in a clam shell at Sandy Point State Reservation on Plum Island last summer.
Diamontopoulos, who describes herself as an amateur photographer who "loves to go birding," used a Nikon Coolpix P1000 to get the shot.
Diamontopoulos said she likes to hit the trails early in the day for good photos — sometimes by 5 a.m.
"I am an early riser so I'm usually on the road as the sun is rising. ... I was at Sandy Point first thing that morning. The nesting area is cordoned off to protect the birds and their babies," she wrote in an email. "This is where my zoom lens is perfect. I'm able to zoom in to get a pretty close picture of the birds and still be a safe distance from them. The well-being of the birds should always be the first priority."
She called the charming photo "pure luck."
"I had spent the morning taking photos of the babies and their parents. But the baby plovers are like wind-up toys — they're very fast and erratic. It's hard to predict where they may go. My camera has a setting for birding that allows seven continuous shots once the shutter button is pressed. It's perfect for a moving object such as these little guys," she wrote.
"I had been taking shots of the babies all morning, some successfully and other times they were just too fast. For babies that are just a few days old, they are quick! They'd run back and forth, with their worried parents right behind them trying to make sure that they didn't wander too far. I watched as this little guy made a run for it to the waterline and then back up the beach again, running through the shells that were scattered along the sand.
"I just kept taking photos hoping I could get a decent photo of him. I quickly looked through the photos in my camera while I was still at the beach and saw him standing perfectly in the overturned shell. I couldn't believe my luck! The camera got the shot just as he was running over the shell.
"It was such an adorable photo. I hoped that it looked just as cute when I got it on my computer (sometimes shots that look good in the camera don't always look as good once I get them on the computer), and it did," she wrote.
Her photo won the grand prize and $150 in the annual contest, sponsored by Essex Heritage.
To see more winning photos and watch a video of the awards presentation: https://m.facebook.com/EssexHeritage/.
