Mostly fishing.
Three days ago on my long trip to the west desert this Snowy Egret was a surprise find on a pond where I rarely (as in almost never) see them. ‘He’ was pretty close and the sun was behind me so there was no way I wasn’t going to stop for him. He gave me some static reflection poses like this one but I was hoping he’d get used to my presence, relax a little, and maybe give me a little action. Like fishing perhaps.
But I knew that getting quality photos would be a challenge. I didn’t find him until 10:07 AM, 4 hours after sunrise on a cloudless, intensely sunny day, so the light was already harsh – a terrible situation to try to get a good exposure on a brilliantly white bird. I did what I could, including shooting at -2 EV for these shots, but I sure wish I’d found him earlier.
When birds rouse I always fire off a burst in the hope of…
capturing a shot or two like this one, with feathers going every which way.
He was chasing fish all over that pond. His incredibly fast, herky-jerky movements made it very difficult for me to avoid clipping body parts, of the bird and/or his reflection.
In this case he missed the fish, but after the strike he could still see it in the water so he…
wheeled around 180° and chased it in the other direction but he still didn’t catch it. In the nine minutes I spent with him I only saw him catch one tiny fish. Lots of work for very little return.
This is the beginning of another instantaneous 180° turn. Notice how the base of his neck is twisted. To me it almost looks like his lower neck is becoming detached from his body.
A pretty good look at his signature “golden slippers”.
I’m including this shot just because I like the symmetry of bird and reflection.
We’ll end the way we began, with a rouse. This time he doesn’t look quite so… discombobulated.
Soon after I took this photo he took off and flew to the back of the pond where he was too far away for photos. And I headed for home. Next time, if there is a next time, I hope to find this bird or one of his buddies earlier in the morning.
Ron
OTHER USERS BOUGHT THIS!!!
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