Red Tide Blessings ...

[Arthur Morris]

Great Egret with young American Eel (I think …)

This image was created at Fort DeSoto Park on the morning of September 22, 2018. While seated, I used the hand held Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR lens (at 450mm) and my back-up Nikon D850.ISO 400. Matrix metering at zero: 1/3200 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. Natural Auto WB at 8:32am on a mostly clear morning with a bit of an edge off the sun. One up and to the left of center group (grp) Continuous (AI Servo in Canon) shutter button AF was active at the moment of exposure. The upper point of the array was on the bottom of the bird’s chin. Phase detection AF Fine-tune value: +4. See the Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide here.

Before I headed over to Fort DeSoto for six days of teaching I received several e-mails all with dire red tide predictions. The mild red tide there turned out to be a bird photography blessing. See the blog posts here and here for the beginning of the story. After four sessions I have too many excellent images to work on ...

As for the image, don't be shy; all comments are welcome.

with love, artie

[Joseph Przybyla]

Ticks all the boxes for me... I have never seen a Great Egret with an eel before. Thank you for sharing, Artie.

[Alex Becker]

Cool to see one with an eel. Exposure and details look great and I like the subtle water BG. No nits from me. TFS

[Dorian Anderson]

Eel does it. Makes for a interesting and active portrait. Exposure spot on. Cheers.....

[arash_hazeghi]

cool shot Artie, a rare menu item, I'd post a bit larger it looks a bit small for those of us viewing on large screens

[Gabriela Plesea]

Awesome capture Sir Arthur,

Nice techs and well exposed. Love the composition, killer BG, a well processed frame as expected from you.
Thought Great Egrets eat fish and frogs, never seen one with an eel (thought is was a snake). Superb behavioural frame, a pleasure to view

Wishing you a wonderful rest of the week,

QG

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the composition, nice BG, sharpness and catch of the day. Well done Arthur.

[Robert vanMierop]

Nice head angle and eye on the Egret. Def. an eel and not a snake. When I saw it on your LCD that morning I wasn't sure, but after seeing all of the dead eels, and a few live ones, it was a sure thing. Good to see you guys out there last weekend. It's been a while since I've seen that much flying, feeding, etc. in one morning.

[Arthur Morris]

Nice head angle and eye on the Egret. Def. an eel and not a snake. When I saw it on your LCD that morning I wasn't sure, but after seeing all of the dead eels, and a few live ones, it was a sure thing. Good to see you guys out there last weekend. It's been a while since I've seen that much flying, feeding, etc. in one morning.

Ditto The SAT and SUN feeding sprees were amazing!

with love, arite

[Arthur Morris]

ps: It was the bird before that I thought might have been a snake. It was much longer and skinnier and silvery but it to was an eel.

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