Another afternoon of shooting

Black Crowned Night Heron

Todays photo walk at the bird sanctuary was mostly uneventful, but not unprofitable. Another cool day, in which I wore gloves and a warm hat, but it was nice to be outdoors and away from the stress of my regular job. There were moments of wondering if there would really be any moments worth photographing, and others when the moments worthy of shooting happened much faster than expected. 



The Black Crowned Night Herons' that I have posted a number of photos of in the last few months regularly winter in this area of southern BC, which is a real treat for me, because they can be somewhat unpredictable. The Night Herons' will sit unmoving for hours, sometimes sleeping, other times just watching things around them. Today it seemed as if the Heron would never move, so after 10-20 minutes I moved on to view some eagles, that were too far away to photograph with my 300mm F4 sadly. The rest of my walk was rather uneventful, although I did get to witness a strange light show of sorts, as the early afternoon sun behind thick clouds over the Strait of Georgia, broke slightly, allowing a brief red glow from the sun to come through the clouds. That was strange to me, because it is not a normal to see redish light in the sky at 1:30 in the afternoon! 


Oh yes, more on the Night Heron, when I returned to the start of the path around the sanctuary, where the Night Herons' tend to perch, it was not there. The Heron had moved to another pond, over a few hedges, on an old and now closed wooden walk way, as seen in todays photo. That would have been fine, but before I noted the Heron, I noted that there was a hawk in the tree over that bridge. All was well with the Heron though, up until a few moments after I took this photo anyway, when the hawk came down, and the Heron flew off to a log in the pond. As wonderful as this moment was to watch, the two other photographers who were shooting the same Heron, along with myself, missed this part of the event and ended up with no photos other than before and after shots. I think all three of us were moving equipment or changing settings, which led us to miss what could have been a great photographic moment.