Great Blue/Night Heron standoff

[ginger_55]

This Great Blue Heron flew in, thereby trapping an unsuspecting Night Heron next to the shore.....................by me! My lens was too long to get full body shots, so I resorted to pieces. I like them very much. Your comments are solicited, repaid in kind, of course, :D .

http://gingerSnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613242-L.jpg

I even went vertical:

http://gingerSnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613236-M.jpg

So I went to the Night Heron and could get this much in, only by standing as far away as I could get without falling in the water on the other side, 420 mm, all total:

http://gingerSnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613249-L.jpg

As quick and as quietly as I could be, I rushed to my pack and pulled out the 70-200L whereby I got this shot of the Night Heron.

http://gingerSnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613256-L.jpg

and this:

http://gingerSnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613229-L.jpg


I had plenty of time, as it would be calculated, usually. The Great Blue was gone, but the Night Heron, in his invisible way, was walking most slowly, before flying off and landing here:

http://gingerSnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613891-L.jpg

Where he remained. I finally finished shooting my egret babies, he was still there, I said "good-bye", quietly. As I said, I hope he feels better by today. That Great Blue Heron was huge, he came in making a heck of a racquet, the Night Heron, he had made no noise, until we looked at the Great Blue, we had not known the Night Heron was there.

There endeth my Night Heron adventure of yesterday.

ginger

[robscomputer]

Great captures! It's a pretty rare moment when the birds are too close.

Rob

[ginger_55]

Yes, it was a time to be very happy that I had the 70-200.

Thanks for commenting, Rob,

ginger

[bfjr]

Isn't that great :thumb when you can get close !!
#2 & #3 for me G
very nice job, again
Your shots getting better all the time Ginger :thumb

[ginger_55]

Thank you, Ben, I think we are all getting better.........scary isn't it. The pressure.:lol4

I almost didn't put #2 in, I really don't evaluate a lot of my own shots very well.

Thanks for looking and commenting. I wish I were with you and Jeff sometimes: then my NH would look different, though.:D

ginger (I could send you mine, maybe that is what he is afraid of.)

[ginger_55]

This was what I considered the best of my Heron shots. I am still hoping for criticism, more responses, I guess.

I have also the baby egret photos, should I space this stuff more. I was going out this afternoon, about the same time these photos were taken, for the most part.

I don't expect to get that close, very unusual situation, but there will be the "green" stuff. Should I be removing that cast?

If I should, how do I do that? Hue/sat/ or levels, or curves (my weakest area in color, can lighten darken and contrast with it now, but don't use it for color as my attempts have been disastrous.

ginger

I was going to post the babies this AM, the ones from Sunday.

Should I space them? One at a time? Several? Next weekend? Never?........???

[jwear]

Ginger I thought you did not like bird parts :rofl well maybe a turkey leg :scratch the bird parts are very nice :thumb on sunday with Ben [he is a witness] the same GBH came back and walked within 5 feet of me 3 times and like you i had the 70/200 ,I now have a great feather shot :D

[ginger_55]

I noticed in your post of the Skimmer that you said a GBH was a couple inches away, or something. I thought, HUH? I thought this was unusual when they were that close to me. The GBH did not stay long, not tame at all. The NH just stayed as he was scared not to. Don't know what that altercation was about, but the NH was intimidated.

That must have been something to have a GBH that close!

Pelicans here, last winter anyway, they would get that close, but none of the other birds will.

James Taylor just blew me away on the Today Show. I have to see if the song is available on iTunes. (Don't know the name, slight problem)

Again, he is singing.

ginger thanks so much for saying something.

On the bird parts, I don't mind mine. I think the GBH is better in parts than the chunky little NH. I was vexed that I was having to do it, so I tried to not just cut them off at the shoulder.

(Uh, for you, well you got the Skimmer, so you came out ahead, but I was also carrying a 17-40) If this "closeness" keeps out, we may have to invest in 10-22, which I want anyway.

How do you and Ben decide who gets to shoot what?

[jwear]

I noticed in your post of the Skimmer that you said a GBH was a couple inches away, or something. I thought, HUH? I thought this was unusual when they were that close to me. The GBH did not stay long, not tame at all. The NH just stayed as he was scared not to. Don't know what that altercation was about, but the NH was intimidated.

That must have been something to have a GBH that close!

Pelicans here, last winter anyway, they would get that close, but none of the other birds will.

James Taylor just blew me away on the Today Show. I have to see if the song is available on iTunes. (Don't know the name, slight problem)

Again, he is singing.

ginger thanks so much for saying something.

On the bird parts, I don't mind mine. I think the GBH is better in parts than the chunky little NH. I was vexed that I was having to do it, so I tried to not just cut them off at the shoulder.

(Uh, for you, well you got the Skimmer, so you came out ahead, but I was also carrying a 17-40) If this "closeness" keeps out, we may have to invest in 10-22, which I want anyway.

How do you and Ben decide who gets to shoot what?Ginger we are guys we push and shove a lot ,that's why we take doc along :D we have a lot of the same shots when I post my coyote pups you will see .we both are good at finding animals and spotting things so we do our best to find anything we can and shoot it .Ben post series and i post one or 2 after i get my smug up maybe i will do longer posts :dunno and the GBH 3 times flew just past me and walked right in front of me I will post 5 feet or 2 feet it was very close and a egret also i will pull the shots and post the 2 this week . but the best shot of the day was my skimmer and the best find was the pups :thumb

[Andy]

As quick and as quietly as I could be, I rushed to my pack and pulled out the 70-200L whereby I got this shot of the Night Heron.

http://gingerSnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613256-S.jpg

:thumb

[ginger_55]

Thanks, Andy. I appreciate the stop, the "look see", and the response:thumb

Ginger:D

[ginger_55]

The rest of you, anyone else who wants to comment, I am not going to Magnolia today. I fell over my camera bag (this photography is a hazardous profession), and my neck hurts. Since I don't have to go, I am not.

I might go to a plantation near here. So darned expensive! And it would not be sweet light. But I would not have to "hike" to do what I had planned, which would have been a futile attempt to get a photo for the challenge. Then I could put it on the critque thing and everyone could tell me how to fix it.

But, I am not going birding, not unless the bird falls in my lap, then I would definitely need to change lenses.

So, please do comment. I have at least two more threads to put up: one titled, The Parents, the other titled, The Babies Homework, or some such thing.

ginger (and I could put up a short thread somewhere else about being lost in the woods, not Magnolia, Sunday.) Totally lost...... I have pictures of arrows, didn't think to put the identifying parts of the terrain with the arrows.
Also have photos of bill. Just a short thing for somewhere.

Not going birding, though, comments are fine: here.

[Steve Cavigliano]

Ginger,

Those 70-200 shots turned out very well :thumb :thumb They came out nice and crisp :clap


Hang in there lady. If this stuff was that easy, it wouldn't be so much fun :D

We are having fun, right?


Steve

[Seamus]

http://gingersnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613229-L.jpg


There endeth my Night Heron adventure of yesterday.

ginger
I don't know how to critique but this one is my favourite. Imho, it is the sharpest and the one that is perfectly focused and is very similar to a shot harry would have taken.

Shay.

[Harryb]

http://gingersnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613242-S.jpg

I like the comp on this shot but the bill is not as sharp as the shoulder area. I'm guessing you were shooting fairly wide open. I would have stepped donw the aperture a tad. There's also a green tone to the shot. Still and excellent capture. :thumb



http://gingersnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613236-M.jpg

:nod

http://gingersnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613249-S.jpg

This one is tad soft and I'm guessing a bit too heavily cropped.





http://gingersnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613229-S.jpg

This one is outstanding :clap


http://gingersnap.smugmug.com/photos/25613891-S.jpg

Love the comp on this one. :thumb

[ginger_55]

Thanks, Harry, I appreciate your looking, really I do.

I also think that shot looks soft, confusing as it didn't til I got it down here, but it may be, probably is..........I don't like it that much anyway. I thought others might (it deviates from my style), since I did it, and did not notice that it was soft, I just wanted the feedback. It was all I could get with the 420mm on it. The NH.

I switched to the 70-200, but the Great Blue had left already, that is why the only further back shot is the night heron.

The only shot that is cropped is the last one, and that was only to move the bird a tad because of the centering factor. You know, the not centering "rule", kind of.

My guess is that I should have backed all the way up into the next swamp to get the night heron shot, that even as far as I backed up, I may have still been too close to get a clear shot.

I really do appreciate your feedback.

Thanks,

ginger

On the DOF, I was keeping it on F8 and F5.6, as per suggested over the weekend. Lots of experimenting is going on right now, so that makes the feedback even more important. How much more would you have stopped it down? I had it on 400 ISO, until I couldn't maintain that, got some blur in flight with that. You know, no blur in the stationary things and blur in the moving things, when they were fast birds. But I did keep it there, til after 4 or so, I had to bump it to ISO 800. We left at 5:30. I missed the sweet light. My dogs missed us, smile.

Today, it was Ospreys...............same figures. I hope they turn out OK, I am very excited about a few of them.

[ginger_55]

Steve, thanks for the encouragement!

You are one nice guy to have around!

What are you working on these days?

ginger