Pond Heron: Landing.

[Satish Ranadive]

Imaged this pond Heron yesterday early in the morning.
Cropped and sharpened.

ISO: 1250, 1/2000 @ F: 6.3.Evaluating metering. Exposure bias: +0.7.
White balance: Auto. HH. Canon: 550D, 400mm.

Thanks for viewing and appreciation. C & C are highly appreciated.
Best Regards.

[John Cooper]

Good action Satish, nice warm lighting and the droplets of flying water emphasizes the heron's activity. Well captured.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Satish, this looks like our Squacco heron. Well timed to capture the raised wings during his bathing moment, and the flying droplets add to the image. Could have got down any lower?

[Satish Ranadive]

Hi Satish, this looks like our Squacco heron. Well timed to capture the raised wings during his bathing moment, and the flying droplets add to the image. Could have got down any lower?

Thank you for your kind comments,John and Stuart Sir.
This the is lowest I could go.

Regards,
Satish.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice action shot with nice wing position and flying water droplets, Satish.

[Marina Scarr]

Terrific bathing capture. Love the water splash. Don't normally see the wings up until they are up and ready to flap all the water away, so this is pretty new for me. The elegance of the wings up really makes this image special for me...plus the angle, light and water splash.

[gail bisson]

This is really nice Satish.
Lovely light and love the wing position.
Gail

[Joe Senzatimore]

Beautiful light and fine exposure. Never saw one of these so TFS.

[Frank Schauf]

Nice composition and excellent expsoure control and sharpness.

[Satish Ranadive]

Terrific bathing capture. Love the water splash. Don't normally see the wings up until they are up and ready to flap all the water away, so this is pretty new for me. The elegance of the wings up really makes this image special for me...plus the angle, light and water splash.

Thank you all for your nice comments.
Marina:
This Pond heron was not taking the bath,The story is as follows:
Few years back a non used stone mine (filled with rain water) was converted in to park called as “Bird Valley “along with jogging path (of 2.5 km) surrounding the lake and big lawns but without birds except few residential one. In the last month millions of fishes were released in lake and now many water birds like all sp. of cormorants, King fishers, Terns, Egrets, Fish Eagle owls (visitors) are abundant.
I was trying to photograph (sitting in a small boat, the only vantage point with sun behind me) a pair of Pied king fisher who was fishing there in a flock of thousands of fishes moving with very well synchronized way. This Pond Heron was imitating the king fisher. (Pond herons are very good learners).First time he caught one fish while flying. Second time he failed and at the same moment (I think he lost his balance) landed in water and this is the moment I captured and presented here.

Regards,
Satish.

[Bill Dix]

Great image Satish. Quick reaction to catch him at the critical moment. Nice upraised wings, water splash, beautiful light. Well done.

[Robert Holguin]

Terrific shot.
Great pose, love the water splash, very nice light, and great comp.
Well done.