Great Blue Heron Stretch

[Daniel Cadieux]

This individual preened for ages (well over half an hour), offering many interesting poses and contortions, and at the end of it all stretched both wings, one at a time. Great Blue Herons can be such fun when sticking with them!

Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC III, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1250s., f/8, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, small crop from below and both sides, a few specks in the water below removed via "Spot Removal" and "Patch" tools.

[Bob Smith]

A very stylish pose with really nice detail on the "whiskers" and the barbs of the primaries. The pale blue of the BG sets off the range of purple/grey colours of the bird very nicely and the slight turn of it's head towards us makes it look like it's keeping it's eye on you.

[arash_hazeghi]

That's pretty cool pose Dan! the thumbnail doesn't do justice! very nice. I might go for a 4:3 crop here to crop a bit more from the reflection and focus on the bird

TFS