Ruby is our year old doberman pup. She began barking furiously downstairs yesterday. Usually this means a squirrel is burying a nut in the lawn or a deer is walking through the woods. But yesterday she saw something really interesting about 5-6 feet from the window. It was an immature yellow-crowned night-heron. He/she was slowly walking across the lawn. Both Norm and I ran for our cameras. The photo below is one taken after about half an hour of shooting. He flew up onto a white fence and Norm and I were able to approach quite close. I had a bit of an advantage as I had another fence on which to brace the camera to help steady it due to the low shutter speed in the fading light. We were only about 12 -15 feet away when we took our final images. He stayed around our house for some time afterward so he was not upset by our presence and flew short distances around the yard. It's a first for sighting of a night-heron on our property. Since the high winds caused high water (2-3 feet higher than usual)out front he may have been flushed from his usual fishing spot.
I particularly like the errant feather (or is it the start of a plume feather?).
Nikon D7000, 28-300 mm Nikkor @300, ISO 640, f6.3, 1/160 sec.
Post processing -- cloned out a reflection of the white fence in the eye but left the clouds, levels, smart sharpen, cropping.
You gotta love that errant feather and the good eye contact. A bit more DOF would have been nice, but it looks like light was at a relative premium. I might try to warm up the color temperature a little.
Thanks everyone for your kind comments. Yes, Doug, that errant feather is something to love. And you have a good suggestion to warm it up a bit. It was in shade as the sun was behind a cloud. No chance for more DOF as I was at such a low shutter speed already.
What Ruby Saw!
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