photoartflightGreat Blue Heron In Finis Pool @ Bombay Hook NWR
Posted on October 2, 2019
Towards the end of the Wildlife Drive at Bombay Hook is Finis Pool. Quite often you can get photos of turtles here along with ducks. On this day we found a cooperative Great Blue Heron that posed for us. We took a few images and then moved on to not disturb the Heron. Plus a couple of turtle images, since we were there. Here I was using a Canon R with a Tamron 150-600mm zoom.
Great Blue Heron @ 600mm
Great Blue Heron @ 428mm
Great Blue Heron @ 600mm
Great Blue Heron @ 600mm
Turtle on Stump – Finis Pool – 600mm
Turtles Warming In Sun – Finis Pool, 600mm
Great Blue Herons At Brigantine
Posted on February 20, 2019
While I was photographing Landscapes & Cloudscapes along the Wildlife Drive at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, I noticed this Great Blue Heron behind some of the grasses along the Wildlife Drive. I got a few shots through the grasses and then the two Herons lower down in the water flew off. I got a few more shots as they flew away from me. I was surprised that during the day we saw quite a few Great Blue Herons throughout the Refuge. Usually most do not hang around in the cold weather but there were quite a few throughout the Refuge.
Canon R, 400mm f/4 DO lens, 1.4x series III teleconverter
Great Blue Herons At Blackwater NWR
Posted on February 15, 2019
It seems that a few Great Blue Herons always hang around at Blackwater NWR through the Winter. Usually most migrate out of the area but a few seem to stay in the area on the Refuge. On this trip I saw 3 Great Blues along the Wildlife Drive.
Great Blue Heron watching for a meal. As I was watching he tried a few times with no luck. (400mm w/ 1.4x teleconverter)
I stopped to photograph some Tundra Swans in the water and turned around and noticed this GBH in the tree behind and above me. (m43 Olympus @ 140mm)
Great Blue Heron foraging in the dried grasses @ 400mm w/ 1.4x teleconverter.
Great Blue Heron Birdscape
Posted on September 3, 2018
Sometimes instead of trying to fill the frame with my photo subjects, I like to show the environment that they live and exist in. I think it shows the birds and how they act in it. Also where you might be likely to find them.
Great Blue Heron Flyby
Posted on August 8, 2018
While I was photographing a Great Blue Heron off in the distance, this closer one took off and flew by right in front of me. I was using a slower shutter speed because I had my lens stopped down more than usual because of the distance and wanted more depth of field, so the wingtips of this Heron show some blurred movement. Thought it was still interesting and liked the movement of the wingtips.
Great Blue Heron In field before taking flight
Great Blue Heron Takeoff
Sleeping Great Blue Heron
Posted on August 6, 2018
I saw this Great Blue Heron towards the end of the Wildlife Drive at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. It was standing on a fallen tree stump, out in the open. It appeared to be sleeping or taking a nap since it was not preening or moving after watching for 5 minutes. So we moved on. On the end of the second trip around the Wildlife Drive I decided to stop and get a few shots since it was still there. After a few minutes watching the Heron it looked up or woke up and kept looking around. Right to left. 
After watching & photographing for a few minutes we moved on since I did not want to bother the Heron, even though we were on the other side of the channel of water between us. We were surprised that we only saw a few Eagles. Most of the birds we saw were Ospreys, Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons.
Great Blue Heron Across Gull Pond
Posted on February 16, 2017
There was not too many birds to photograph, but I liked this lonely Great Blue Heron in one of the trees across Gull Pond. It looked a little lonely but I saw another about to land but banked and flew over the trees.
Birdscape – Roosting Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron In The Fog
Posted on January 22, 2017
Early in the morning we arrived at Blackwater NWR and the fog was quite heavy. We thought it was going to burn off in an hour or so, according to the weather reports. I found this Great Blue Heron at the beginning of the Wildlife Drive and thought it was interesting. I increased the contrast and saturation in Adobe Camera Raw so you could at least see the Heron, but still have the feel of it being in fog. In “real life” the fog was so heavy you could hardly see the Heron. It was a “flat” gray with hardly any color, just gray. I also continued along the Wildlife Drive shooting different landscapes and “still life” detail images which I still have to get to.
Great Blue Heron 8 Shot Panorama
Posted on November 5, 2016
We went to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge over the weekend to look for Bald Eagles. It was a quiet day at the Refuge. We saw a few eagles, most were far off, but managed to get a few good flight shots. But as we were driving on the Wildlife Drive I came upon this Great Blue Heron right off the drive in the water on a dyke. I was using a 400mm f/4 Do lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter, so I could not even get a full head shot. I did not want to change lenses because I thought it would fly off, so I shot a series of 8 handheld shots of different sections of the heron and assembled them in Photoshop. The final file was over 8 gigs with my edits. Not the greatest shot, but it was fun to put together.
Great Blue Heron Wing Patterns
Posted on March 19, 2016
Last week when I was at a local Nature Area with a friend, it was overcast and a dull day. We got a few photo subjects, but one series was a flyby of two Great Blue Herons.They flew in from the right and went off to the side, then flew off into the distance. It was overcast and gray skies above us, so I did not think much of this series. I concentrated on one of the Great Blues as it went by and shot a quick series as it flew by. About 1-2 seconds @ 10 frames a second. Did not even look at them because a gray large bird against a gray sky did not look interesting to me. Looking at them later, I thought it would make an interesting montage showing the wing beats of a Great Blue and the bland background accented the gray bird’s wing positions. I made a montage of the images to show the flow and wing positions the slow flyby.
Here they go way off in the distance. We were hoping they would make a circuit around the lake, but they flew to the left of the lake and then off into the distance.
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