Bird in Habitat: Boreal Forest Great Blue Heron

[Jeff Dyck]

I spotted this occupied nest from about 1 km away across a marsh with my binoculars (off of a provincial park trailhead access road, just outside of Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario). Already being the end of July, all of the nests I could see in the surrounding rookery had already been vacated. Although I lost sight of the nest as the road twisted around the back of the marsh, it got me within about a 500m bushwack. I slung my turkey blind, chair and tripod over my shoulder and made my best guess as to the right direction to set-out on. After some stumbling about in the thick bush, I popped out on the edge of the water and was able to find some good cover on the shore ~40m adjacent the nest.

This particular shot is basically full frame (on a full frame sensor), taken with a 400mm lens. The shot was taken under changing lighting in mixed cloud cover - the background is in the shadow of a passing cloud while the nest is still in the sun. This is a young heron (who, from the size, must be about ready to leave the nest) - mom is currently out catching some breakfast...

Canon 5DmarkII -- 400L / f5.6 -- ISO100 -- f7.1 @ 1/200s -- -2/3 EV

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=77561

[Joe Senzatimore]

Nice inclusion of habitat and the dark BG makes the subjeck stand out. Might crop just a bit tighter.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I think if I had spotted this nest from far away I also would have done the same thing as you to get closer! Excellent BG - perfect DOF, and the dark tone to it makes for an appealing image. Unfortunately the head is angle slightly away - do you have another frame with the head angled a bit towards us?

P.S. See thread below, it pertains to HA issues (and features the very same species in the very same pose!:))

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?63575-Head-Angle-Philosophies....

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Agree with Daniel. Loved the contrast in this one a lot. The background is really really good.

[Jeff Dyck]

I think if I had spotted this nest from far away I also would have done the same thing as you to get closer! Excellent BG - perfect DOF, and the dark tone to it makes for an appealing image. Unfortunately the head is angle slightly away - do you have another frame with the head angled a bit towards us?

P.S. See thread below, it pertains to HA issues (and features the very same species in the very same pose!:))

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?63575-Head-Angle-Philosophies....

Thanks Daniel. I do have many frames of this scene in both orientations with a few variations in the position of the heron - however - the foreground / background lighting contrast in this particular shot is much better than any of the others. I suppose with a little work a composite image could probably be created utilizing one of the other variations, but I haven't decided if I want to go that far...