Aerial Acrobat ~ Approaching the Evening Roost

[Jim Fenton]

I visited a local evening egret roost late today and the birds began coming in fast and furious as the sun was beginning to set.

The great egrets would come in high, fold their wings and drop down between some trees and then do incredible zig zag and cart wheels..it was an incredible show to watch...seeing birds this big doing such aerial acrobatics.

I watched for a while and began to note a pattern as they descended between the trees which hinted that they would sometimes instantly extend their wings and begin these acrobatics right out of the free fall they were in.

This is one where I anticipated correctly :)

Nikon D300, 500 AFS VR, IS0 800, F 6.3, 1/1250, CW metering +.7EV, NearUniWB preset, 51 pt AF, center reticule hot, Lock-On set to short.

Image created 10 minutes before the sun dipped below the horizon.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Now that is a WILD pose! I'm sure I've thrown paper airplanes that have banked similarly :-) Excellent job of observing the behaviour and capitalizing on the repetitiveness witnessed. Shows how importatnt it is to know your subjects.

[Doug Brown]

Couldn't have said it better myself Daniel! Wish the head were a little sharper, but a great pose and a good lesson in bird photography.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose and light. Another vote for a bit more sharpening.

[Vincent Grafhorst]

Spectacular pose! Is this FF?

[Jim Fenton]

This is a full vertical crop of a horizontal frame.

[Taylor Yeager]

Unique pose. I checked out your exhibit at the plantation yesterday. It looked very nice.

[Arthur Morris]

A lovely and unique pose. Agree with the need for more sharpness. I could not do much with the eye with the few pixels that I had to work with but did a bit. Also sharpened the head and reduced the SAT a bit.

[allanrube]

I like the pose a lot. We see too many posts with the same wing pattern (not a criticism), but this one sure is different.