Black-crowned Night Heron With An Unusual Eye Reflection – Feathered Photography

That turned out to not be a reflection at all.

1/4000, f/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

Yesterday morning at Bear River MBR I didn’t take many photos of this adult Black-crowned Night Heron while ‘he’ was perched on matted phrags because the setting was busy.

1/4000, f/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

But when he roused I thought his hairdo was pretty cute, so I fired away.

When birds rouse it’s sometimes an indicator of imminent takeoff, so that’s what I prepared myself for.

1/5000, f/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

This time I was right. He took off almost immediately after the rouse.

1/5000, f/6.3, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

This is my favorite shot of him in flight. I wish he’d turned his head my way a little.

When I’m checking my images for sharpness during processing I always look at them at “100%”. This version of the first photo above is at slightly less than 100% and it shows a pretty normal looking catch light in the eye – “normal” except for it being a double catchlight, which isn’t unusual when birds are in or near water.

But this version of photo #2 above shows something different in his eye. At first I thought it was a reflection of some of the phrags between the bird and me, which would have been highly unusual but that’s the way my instincts took me. For longer than I like to admit.

And then it hit me. When he roused he didn’t just raise the feathers of his black crown. He also raised his cheek feathers (auriculars) and some of them just beneath his eye were sticking up in front of his eye. And they fooled me into thinking they were reflections of phrags.

This was the first time I’ve seen, or noticed, a bird raising its cheek feathers straight upwards during a rouse.

Live and learn. No biggie, but interesting, at least to me.

Ron