Little Green Heron Photo Shoot

This Little Green Heron was so cooperative and gave me so many good shots, I decided to devote a blog page just for this one bird.  Moving and posing for me, it let me get really close for the various photos.   It really was as if it was giving me a photo shoot.  It all started while doing some yard work, when I noticed the bird at the pond.  Any chance to quit working and grab the camera is always appreciated, 🙂 so that’s what I did.  

I put the Sigma 150-600mm lens on the D750 camera, added the flash with the MagMod Wildlife Kit modifier attached.  (Click the blue link for more details.)  This attachment gives the flash a very long reach, and I use it most often as fill flash when the birds are in the shade of branches and brush.  Flash settings are very low, so that most of the time you don’t really see that I ever used flash.  A 1/1600 shutter speed was set, and I let the camera adjust the Aperture and ISO (3200max) settings.  These shots ended up at 600mm, f/6.3, with the ISO variable from 450 to 1100.  That’s about it.  

The bird let me get within 50 feet or so, and I just stood there waiting for some action.  Patience is the key with wildlife.  I must have stood there over 30 minutes waiting for some of these shots.  And that is a whole lot shorter than some of my sessions in the photo blind.  The problem in this case, was how tiring it was holding up that camera and lens to be ready for the shot.  Hindsight…… I should have had it on my tripod, where I put a large rubber band around the base of the legs and use it as a mono pod.  But I did not miss too many shots from letting the camera down to rest my arms a bit.  Check the pic on the About Me page to see the size of the camera and lens (without the flash).  

So here is the first set of pics

I always knew this type of bird is such a good fisherman.  But this next series of shots caught something I had never seen before.  Basically, it hung out in the branches waiting for dragonflies.  Unfortunately, I missed the primo shot of the actual catch, but it is still a nice series of pics.

And I’ll close with my favorite 

Thanks for the look

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