Taking a cue from David’s “year’s favorites”, I thought I’d go for categories rather than multiple single posts. In this case birds, with all of these taken along the Saint John’s River in Florida from Mike Ramy’s boat. One of my goals for the year was to get better at catching animals in motion, so two of these three are birds in flight.
Great Blue Heron Flyby
Great Blue Herons are easy to see but often hard to approach, so when this one let us approach fairly close in the boat before it took off, I was delighted to get this full frame view as it flew past. (7D2, 100-400 @ 200 mm, 1/2000 s, f/10, iso 800)
Osprey Intensity
This male Osprey, certainly gave us a stare as we slowly floated closer. I find the bird and stare, which seems quite baleful if I anthropomorphize, set off well by the green, leafy background. (7D2, 100-400 @ 400, 1/2000 s, f/8, iso 2000)
Returning to the Nest
We anchored moderately close to a small island nesting colony, with numerous Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons and Anhingas. Watching the action as the nest mates returned from fishing was lot of fun although getting shots without other birds clearly in the frame was a challenge. There was always quite a “conversation” between Great Egret pairs as the returner got close to the nest, leading to my secondary title, “Honey, I’m hooooommmeee…”, followed by lots of posturing and calling by the pair after the returner landed. (7D2, 100-400 @ 400mm, 1/2500 s, f/5.6, iso 3200)
