We left so early for our walk today I didn’t bother grabbing my camera, and as we were leaving the dike I was kicking myself for it. This would have been so much better shot with something other than my phone. I’ve never before seen a heron perched on the top of the power lines.
Great Blue Heron shot with my Samsung phone through the front window of my car.A quick snap out through the open window
I’m sure the purpose of the orange floating plastic is to prevent debris from entering the pumping station (which is to the left just out of the shot), but this time of year, the only purpose seems to be separating murky water from even murkier water. The herons seem to find it a great place to spend the mornings, as it has been a rare walk the few months when I haven’t seen a heron in or around this location.
I was lucky as I was able to get quite close to the heron to take the photo below. Spencer stayed calm and quiet and I think we got within about 15 feet before the heron started looking a bit uncomfortable, so we backed off to allow it to get back to searching for some breakfast.
A few weeks ago, I came across a heron perched on a water level post along the dikes, and while I was able to create an interesting silhouette from the photograph I took, it wasn’t at all how I had envisioned what the final image would look like. Since I had never seen a heron on that post before, I didn’t think it likely I would get the chance to try again for the shot I wanted, but it came only a week later. This time, I was able to approach slowly enough to shoot from a few different angles, and get some crisp shots of the heron.
I’m not sure if the heron is staring at the trio of ducks, or at something else in the small pond. It was very close to the turn around point on my walk, and when I passed by again less than 5 minutes later, the heron was still there, but the ducks had found another place to spend the morning.
I’d never before seen a heron perched on the top of the water depth marker near the dike pumping station, and I quickly got my camera out to snap a few photos. I really wasn’t pleased with the results though; the photos were far too soft for my liking. I did a quick conversion in Silver Efex Pro to see if there was any way to create an interesting image, and I’m actually quite pleased with the results. 1/500 sec, f6.3, ISO 100