For many years I have enjoyed watching and occasionally photographing the heron featured here at my local lake/pond and the river. The bird would sometimes fly over my flat to feed on the local river. The bird had a distinct feature to its leg making it recognisable. When I created this image I realised the bird may have had an injured wing so I called the RSPCA out in the hope of catching the bird and sending it to an Avian vet for treatment. Two members of the RSPCA came out the following morning and we set about catching the bird. The bird could not fly but it could run like the wind. Sadly the wing was broken beyond repair so the bird was put to sleep. Back in December 2013 I made an image of the bird which is one of my favourite images. The bird is hunting by the river on a beautifully lit misty morning but it is feeding alongside rubbish strewed on the river bank. The image has impact but it lacks the formality of a 'BPN' type image, which is the way with many of my images many of which are urban.
Canon 7D, Sigma 500 f4.5, ISO 800, f7.1, 1/1250.
1st image Small crop, levels etc
2nd image full frame and no processing except down size for web.