NATURE CLICKS #588 - GREAT BLUE HERON

Great Blue Heron, Spring Lake, Petoskey, Michigan

Here is another photo of the same Great Blue Heron as in the last blog post. It was made a little later and from a different position. The bird had just caught a bullhead and tried to swallow it. This needs to be done in a smart way because the bullhead has sharp spines at the leading edges of the dorsal and pectoral fins. It took the heron quite some time to ”prepare” the fish but at the end the little catfish ended up in the herons stomach.

In this photo the background had some light and made actually for a good environmental portrait of the bird, including some water plants and reeds. There was a nice spot light on the bird’s head, not as harsh as before, and an underexposure by one f-stop was enough to keep the highlights intact.

NATURE CLICKS #587 - GREAT BLUE HERON

Great Blue Heron, Spring Lake, Petoskey, Michigan

A board walk gave us access to a small pond and wetland area near the town of Petoskey, Michigan. We approached the bird very slowly, assuming it would fly away any moment, but the heron had only the hunt for fish on its mind. It was all what I was hoping for with the new Nikon Z600 f/6.3, handholding the lens without struggle and coming back with a high keeper rate of sharp images. The background was very busy, with lots of dead wood and reeds. The bright parts of the bird’s plumage required underexposure by 2 f-stops and this solved the problem with the background.