Finding the right place?

Hi everyone.

So I've got a short vacation at the beach next week. I'm there for 4 days. I am lucky that my family has a place on Ninigret pond in Charlestown, RI.

Anyhow, I had a great time last summer shooting herons, and plan on doing some sunset/sunrise photos if the tide works with me. From the tide charts I've seen, low tide is about an hour and a half after sunup the days I'm there which means I may have the chance to shoot some feeding behaviors.

I'm looking for advice on how one finds the right place to shoot from. There are three ways of doing this, as I see it. Either I find a really good place with a good background and wait for my subject; find my subject and hope for a good background to work with or a combination of the two.

I'd like to hear a little more about how people find the right place to shoot from.

<in cynical="" mode="" this="" morning="">edited: I see my cynicism tags did not come through, so I'll put them in ()

(I'm being cynical this morning)
You look for the places with other tripods and big lenses;) If no photographers, look for the tripod holes.;);)
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<in cynical="" mode="" this="" morning=""><cynicism off="">
My experience with wildlife is you have to go where the wildlife are, and not wait for them to come to you. Exception: if you know they periodically return to a particular spot, then one can set up an wait. I would do that only after seeing that they are in that pattern that day.

Roger</cynicism></in>

I've never seen another photographer there and I've been running around this pond for almost 30 years.

I would do some scouting first to see where birds feed or if there are breeding colonies on the shore and go to these places early and late whenever you will have the best sun angle.

Dig around on google and find the nearest Audubon society chapter, utilize their website or contact them.

I rarely wait for anything. Try to find a spot with pleasing habitat and/or sweet backgrounds that will provide nice light and good sun angles either early or late in the day. Birds are helpful too ;)