"Mine!"

"Mine!"

And here is the heron after it caught it's lunch. I don't think he wanted to share it.

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Posing

Heron Posing

This is a different heron than the one in yesterday's photograph. This particular heron was at another pond than where I watched the first one. It did not seem as shy around people since it would get much closer to us than would the other heron. As people threw out bread for the ducks and geese, the heron would be right there with the other birds. However, it would not eat any of the bread. It was waiting for it's preferred dinner to come eat the bread instead.

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Taking Flight

Great Blue Heron in Flight

This past weekend I went out to the ponds at the Milliken Research Center. It was a beautiful afternoon and there were quite a few people out there. There was at least one large family gathering / party, plus lots of families with small children feeding the birds.

A couple of the Great Blue Herons that hang out around the ponds were present and I decided to concentrate on them. The herons are generally quite a bit more hesitant with people and tend to fly away if someone gets too close which makes them harder to photograph. That also means that you have a better chance of getting some photographs of the herons actually doing something interesting than the ducks and geese floating around.

This was the first heron that was came to at the ponds. I crept slowly toward it trying to keep my camera on it. Then I noticed a couple walking from the other pond to the one the heron and I were at. The couple was coming up generally behind the heron and I figured that the bird would take off when it felt they were too close. Luckily, I was right and I got some shots of it as it flew to a safer perch.

It was a productive 45 minutes to an hour that I was at the ponds. So, stay tuned as there are more to come.

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Spooked

Get Away From Me!

I managed to capture this heron as it flew away from us. We had been "stalking" it to try to get close enough to fill the frame with it. The heron obliged use my taking off to get away from us. It flew to the other side of the pond where we wouldn't be able to follow it, but that put it's flight path close enough to get this one shot. Although I was using continuous mode, my camera isn't fast enough to track something this quick. This was the only shot from the sequence that was in focus and framed well enough for me.

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Another Heron

Framed

This is another photograph from our visit to the Milliken ponds last week. The heron in the shot had been sitting on the edge of the roof watching us. It took off when a couple of other herons flew by and I managed to get the photograph you see here. You don't always need to go on safari to photograph wild animals. There might be some in your backyard, or that have found a home in your community.

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Milliken Ponds

Wingspan

Yesterday afternoon I took my son out to the ponds at the Milliken Research Center and corporate headquarters. Milliken is a large local textile company. On the property of their headquarters they have a handful of artificial ponds as well as open and semi-wooded land that is open to the public. People go out there for picnics, walks, or to see the variety of birds that congregate around the ponds.

More after the jump.

I like to head out to the Milliken ponds occasionally to practice photographing the birds. The ducks and geese are not generally afraid of people since families will often bring bread to feed to the fowl. The small fish in the ponds enjoy the bread as well.

Photographing birds, or any kind of action really, takes a lot of practice and is something I still need a lot of work to perfect. Birds are quite fast and it can be difficult to anticipate what they will do without knowing their behaviors. I'm not really very knowledgeable about animal behaviors, thus getting good photographs of animals in the wild has not been a strong point of mine. For example, there are a handful of great blue herons that hang out at the Milliken ponds. These are large birds that are still not acclimated to people. They don't eat bread, thus have no reason to get closer to the people that come out to feed the ducks. They notice right away when someone starts walking toward them, and will fly away the moment they think they are being threatened. Hence, I have not been able to get very many good, frame filling photographs of the large birds. They always stay as far away as they can. Even with my 70-300mm lens, they stay far enough way so that they are relatively small features inside the frame.

Previously, I had been trying to get closer to them by creeping slowly around the edge of the pond. I had some successes in the past at getting photographs of them standing by the pond. One thing that I had not been been successful with was capturing an image of one in flight.

Yesterday, I had decided to try moving even slower around the pond and to pay attention to their expressions and movements as I got closer. Of course, having my son with me added to the perceived threat factor, but it also added to the fun. I kind of made it a game with Connor to see how close we could get before the herons took to flight. The limit seemed to be about 20 to 30 yards. Closer than that and the herons flew away. By paying attention to how the birds' were watching us and their body motions, I could almost get to the point where I could anticipate when they would flew away. That seems to be most of the battle with shooting wild animals. Knowing their behaviors and working within them to get your photographs.

During most of the day we were watching one particular great blue heron near one of the ponds. We had noticed another one that was either up in a tree or on top of the nearest building. That second one always seemed to stay about 100 yards or more away from people. Then later two more great blue herons flew in and the other two herons joined them in the air. It was an exciting five minutes or so of trying to get my camera on them, get them framed, and get some shots off. The photograph at the top is my favorite from that period of hectic flying. The herons seemed to be socializing amongst each other and became less threatened by our presence. That allowed the bird in the photograph to get close enough to fill the frame. I was quite happy when I saw this frame on my computer monitor after I got home. It was only one shot, but it made the afternoon really worth it. Plus, my son really got into the spirit of the bird watching and had a good time as well. That was the best thing of all. I guess it was a bit of father/son bonding.

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