Egret and It’s Shadow

An Egret in early morning with warm sunlight with it’s shadow. I liked the warm strong colors with the strong backlighting and shadow of the Egret. I also underexposed a little to bring out more vibrant colors.

Egret & Heron Trees

One of my favorite spots at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville NJ is this group of two trees near the end of the wildlife drive. It does not look like much at a quick glance, but if you look at what is in the trees it is full of photo opportunities. It is like a bird condo. The tree on the right has 64+ birds that you can see, not counting the ones on the other side and down below on the ground and in the water. The types I found on this pass were Great Egret, Little Egret, Snowy Egret, Immature Little Blue Heron, Immature Yellow-crowned Night Heron, in various amounts. Glossy Ibises were foraging in the water beneath and to the side, with Great Blue Herons and Cormorants. Plus there was constant coming and going. I have also seen Hawks, Bald Eagles,  Black-crowned Night Herons and Cattle Egrets here. It is a constant coming and going and depending on the water it can be extremely buggy. Sometimes you really have to scan the trees with a long lens and then you say did I see something. This time I saw something that I thought might be a Black-crowned Night-heron and waited for it to maybe move more and show itself. I was surprised to see 2 immature Yellow-Crowned Night-herons, which then flew off. There is also a number of small birds flying in and out. So depending how patient you are and how the bugs are behaving it is a fun place to observe and photograph.

Egrets Tree v1_43G0202

Egrets v2 brig 2015_43G0078

Egrets v4 brig 2015_43G0077

Geat Egret v2 brig 2015_43G0212

IMMAT YCNH Brig 2015 v3_43G0307

IMMAT YCNH FLYOUT Brig 2015 v2_43G0339

Immature Yellow-crowned Night-herons flying out.

Snowy & Great Egret v1 Brig 2015_43G0080

Snowy & Great egrets v1_43G0081

Snowy Egret & Great & Lit Blu v1 brig 2015_43G0084

Snowy egret v1_Brig 2015 43G0101

Great egret v2 brig 2015_43G0137

Little blue Heron Immature v2 Brig 2015_43G0069

IMMAT YCNH Brig 2015 v2_43G0307Snowy Great Lit blue Im Egret_43G0083

Great Egreat 5 Shot Vertical Panorama

Uh-Oh!

This Great Egret caught his morning meal. The fish just seemed to have a look of surprise or maybe it was the look of the coming doom. It took quite awhile for the Egret to finish its meal and seemed to have difficulty swallowing it down. It kept flipping it in the air and catching it again, maybe for a better position for swallowing the fish. This was early in the morning and still a little dark. I pushed the ISO to 2000, which is about as far as I like to go on a Canon MkIV for noise, and still try to stop the motion  of the Egret shaking its prey. I removed as much noise as I thought possible in Adobe Camera Raw. Using a 1.4X teleconverter gave me an f/stop of 5.6, so I added 1 more stop to help give a little more sharpness. I usually do not like using a 1.4X teleconverter wide open, so being “Old School” I used f/8 for a slight increase in sharpness because of the Teleconverter.

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Two Mouths
Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm DO f/4 IS, Canon 1.4X Teleconverter, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO 2000

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Eye to Eye
Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm DO f/4 IS, Canon 1.4X Teleconverter, f/8, 1/320 sec, ISO 2000