This shot was taken a few years back at a local NWR. We saw this heron on a foggy morning at first light sitting on a stump in the middle of a lake and began taking some portrait shots. Suddenly, the heron pounced in the water and came up with this large pickerel. After a time, the bird managed to engulf the fish.
Any
Is this a composite: No
Canon 7D2, 400 f4 DO II, 1.4x TC III
ISO 640, f5.6, 1/320s, hand held
WOW! Nice capture, Allen. Talk about being in the right spot at the right time.
Great catch. I saw one swallow an entire mole (we call them gophers). It’s a wonder they don’t choke to death while sucking down large fish, snakes or other critters.
Hi Allen
Great action shot and the fog even helps to set the mood. I have never see a Great Egret or Blue Heron come up anything bigger than 6 or 7 inches. Great catch.
Peter
Wonderful capture of a perfect moment!! How they manage to swallow things like this is amazing.
Good job of capturing a special action moment, Allen! The down side of a surprise opportunity is that you don’t have any time to adjust your settings. I can see that you were set up for low noise portraits so there wasn’t enough shutter speed to make everything sharp. The good news is that the critical parts (head and fish) were stopped pretty well, even at 1/320! The log? in the bottom left corner is kind of distracting and might be worth cloning out. Out of curiosity, did you see it swallow the fish or did it pick it apart first?
Hi Gary, thanks for the comment. We did see the bird maneuver the fish around and swallow it whole. It then flew off.
