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
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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