I went for a walk yesterday morning (with the camera, of course), and the theme seemed to be critters. Right there at the King St. bridge over Branch Creek I spotted a male Great Blue Heron in full breeding plumage, and in the Dykeman Spring Nature Park there were various animals and birds of interest - a feral cat, a Gray Squirrel who didn't seem to mind my presence, and the Red-bellied Woodpecker nest I discovered a couple of weeks ago. When I first came up onit, Papa was hanging around, but he took off when he saw me, and stayed out of range above and behind me while I stood still waiting for him to come back. He let out a couple of churrrs when a Chickadee and a rival Woodpecker flew up to check out the hole, but otherwise he kept out of sight. Oh well... I kept hearing a Tufted Titmouse sounding off, plus lots of Cardinals, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Grackles, but everybody kept away from my lens. So here's what I did manage to get.
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| A portrait of the Great Blue Heron |
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| The feral cat, stalking along the trail |
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| The birds stayed away, but at least I got a shot of their high rise condo |
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| This Squirrel was having fun scampering along the branches and didn't seem to mind my presence |
© 2017 by A. Roy Hilbinger
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Great shot of the heron. How close did you actually get to him? Photos can be misleading in that respect.
ReplyDeleteI was probably about 50 feet away. I cropped this close because I wanted to show the details of the plumage.
DeleteWell, it came out very well.
DeleteI assume you had to be about the same distance from the feral cat? :)
A lot farther from the cat; I had the zoom maxed out to get that one. Feral cats are even more skittish than most birds.
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