Great Egret Landing Sequence

It was a slow morning at the Nature Preserve, but then an Egret flew in and landed on a pile of sticks in the water. Shooting a sequence showing the different wing positions in landing.

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Great Egret In Morning Light

I found this Great Egret preening in the early morning light this morning at The Celery Farm Natural Area in Allendale, NJ. I like how the light was shining through the feathers giving dimension and textures from the side/backlighting. The Egret stayed for quite a while on this pile of sticks giving many photo opportunities. When time permits, if the subject is staying for a while, I try different compositions using horizontal or vertical panoramas, and/or focus blending. In time this Great Blue Heron came closer, but was too far behind to get both in focus. I shot 4 shots to create a focus stacked panorama of the two birds. I manually combined them with masks to keep the out of focus background with the bird images in focus.

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Great Egret Preening. Four Shot Panorama w/ focus blending. 2 across, 2 down. Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO lens, Canon Series III 1.4X Teleconverter, f/11, 1/400 sec, -1.33 exposure compensation, ISO 400

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Great Egret Preening. Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO lens, Canon Series III 1.4X Teleconverter, f/11, 1/640 sec, -1.33 exposure compensation, ISO 400

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Great Egret. 4 shot vertical panorama. Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO lens, Canon Series III 1.4X Teleconverter, f/11, 1/500 sec, -1.33 exposure compensation, ISO 400

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Tired of Posing. Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO lens, Canon Series III 1.4X Teleconverter, f/8, 1/800 sec, -1.33 exposure compensation, ISO 400

 

Egret Bookends

We came upon these 2 Egrets along the Wildlife Drive. Each one was looking the opposite way and each was standing on one leg, the opposite leg. I thought it looked interesting and a little amusing. The left was a Snowy Egret, the right  Great Egret. Throughout the time we were there, we saw large numbers of all types of Egrets giving us a large amount of photo opportunities.

 

Great Egret Landing Sequence

Last week at the Celery Farm Natural Area, a Great Egret was fishing close by. He was good at catching fish and seemed very intent on what he was doing. Suddenly he just took off almost straight up, then landed almost immediately a little to one side. I think maybe a snapping turtle got too close. I thought the sequence with the different Great Egret wing positions was interesting so I setup a 7 image septych file for a print  (7 images either related or separate, to tell a story or convey a final image). When finished it is 125 inches wide. I was setup for a vertical image, so I did not have time to change to a horizontal, but I still liked the Egret’s classic wing positions in a row of images.

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Great Egret Fishing. Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm f/4 DO IS lens, Semi-backlighting, f/8, 1/400 sec, ISO 400, Open shadows in Adobe Camera Raw

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Great Egret Shaking Head w/ water droplet pattern. Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Canon 400mm f/4 DO IS lens, Semi-backlighting, f/8, 1/320 sec, ISO 400, Open shadows in Adobe Camera Raw

 

One Leg Up Reddish Egret

This Reddish Egret was just standing on one leg for about an hour. I was shooting other birds flying in and out, hunting for their meals and interacting with each other. This one was just standing on one leg watching what was going on. I usually do not see them that motionless for that long. At least being that still made for a good subject to photograph.

Canon EOS 1D MkIV, Sigma 300-800mm DG f/5.6 zoom @ 800mm, f/8, 1/500 sec, ISO 640

Bombay Hook NWR

I was looking through some of my backed up files and found images from Bombay Hook, National Wildlife Refuge in Smyrna, Delaware. The refuge has a Wildlife Drive that is about eight miles long along the Delaware Bay and covers over 16,000 acres. You can find many subjects for your photography – Wildlife, Birds, Flowers, Landscapes. and macro subjects.  There are also many trails and lookout towers. So depending on the day, you can find a wide variety of subjects for your vision. Usually we only drive through quickly on our way to Blackwater NWR in Maryland. We are planning to go back to spend the day and fully explore the refuge.

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Black and White at Brigantine NWR

Here is a brief selection of birds from the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division in Oceanville, NJ. Some are Summer visitors and the Snow Geese are Fall and Winter Visitors. Brigantine has a huge variety of birds & wildlife. Eagles, Ospreys, Egrets, Herons, shorebirds, gulls, terns, skimmers, rails, down to smaller birds. The birds here are White with Black (or Dark Brown). In bright light these can be a challenge to photograph and not blow out the whites and still retain detail in the dark areas. If they have black or dark brown coloring on them or a dark bird next to them, I capture in raw formats, depending on the make of the cameras. I usually underexpose slightly for the whites to retain details and open up the dark or shadow areas in the processing software.  I use Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop or Lightroom.  Sometimes I will do additional processing for sharpening in Photoshop and I use NIK Color Effects to bring out some additional details in the whites. You have to be careful not to add too much and bring out noise. Brigantine looks like it is coming back after Hurricane Sandy hit last year. We like Brigantine because of the wide variety of Birds & Wildlife photography, Landscapes, Sunsets, Sunrises, Macro – Bugs & Flora, the list is endless.

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