The Potential Mate - American Bittern.

Here is the second of two American Bitterns that approached me the other day. The first was the blushing individual I osted earlier that seemed a bit larger and dominant and vocalizing a bit...this one was more slender, silent, and mostly non-chalant and simply foraging close by so I am *assuming* this is the female. All-in-all avery memorably encounter that I won't soon forget. I like the snaky neck!

Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1600s., f/5.6, ISO 400, handheld, almost FF (slight crop above and left) a couple of stronger edged streaks in the BG were smoothed out. The streaking along left edge is as is form the raw file.

I like the image very much, it has a sort of satin quality about it, I can imagine just how pleased you were, I would have been over the moon to have got a chance like this. The pose is excellent and I like the OOF stripy background. Looking at the image I am surprised how much light you had, the overall tone appears slightly subdued yet you had 1/1600 at 5.6, this has of course added to the atmospheric effect, in short I think it's great.

Gorgeous bird in a gorgeous setting!

Wonderful image Dan, I like it a lot, nice moody feel to it.

Another excellent bittern image out in the open. I am loving the bg in these images.

Hi Daniel, The colors in the image, angle of the bird and BG makes this a very natural Picture. Great !

Hiran

Lovely colours, the snake like position of the head is so nicely captured
i like the BG , more addition from previous images is that the full bird on view and i like this one too
Looks like your subjects here are being really cooperative

Flat out, the best Bittern photo I have ever seen.
You got them in such a great setting, they are always just in the grass when I see them.
The BG and the water in the FG really make this for me.
Great work!

You certainly got your monies worth out of this Bittern Daniel, just perfect image, His posture is very appealing and love the multicolored and streaky backdrop

nice image well done