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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Heron's Breeding Plumage, etc

Tech stuff: Nikon D3200 camera (24 mega-pix) with a Nikkor 55-300mm variable lens - no tripod. These would both be considered entry level by "real" camera buffs. I shoot at about F8, saved in a J-peg format. These photos are not Photoshopped, only cropped as required. I am probably eventually going to  a RAW format, but that opens another can of editing and I don't want to become a photographer looking at birds. I'm pretty happy being a birder lugging a camera around - up to a point. With my old eyes it's great to be able to take a picture and really see the bird back at home.

These were taken on Feb 21 on South Padre Island. While we were there we were finally able to see the Flammulated Owl, a single tiny owl which has been the star of the Lower Rio Grande Valley this year. It was deep enough in the shade thicket that I didn't even bother to attempt a picture. 

The various heron and egrets are starting to get their breeding trim. Check out the blue around the eye of this Great Blue Heron. He is magnificent - so often the beaks are dinged and spit. He's a perfect specimen.






Great Egret

Tri-color Heron


Little-blue Heron

Reddish Egret
Long-billed Curlew

4 comments:

Margadant said...

A tip of the hat to you. That's some damn fine shooting.

Kurt said...

Nice.

Are pictures 1 & 2 from the same photograph ? I do not understand the perspective of picture 5.

Gunnar Berg said...

No. It was set on "burst" so it is virtually the same.

#5 is a top view. I was on a high ramp (think bridge) and it walked below. There is a bad trianular patch job in the lower right of the photo because I caught part of the ramp, so there was a little manipulation of the photo. Which only proves that I lie.

Jonny Hamachi said...

Thanks!!