Though I have seen it many times now, it is always still somewhat a shock to see a Great Blue Heron in a tree.

This is one of those cases when it pays to stop and see what the other guy is looking at. During the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, or most any weekend in November, the photographers outnumber most species except for Cranes and Geese. Or so it seems. They litter the road-sides, cluster where the corn has been freshly knocked down, and the sound of DSLR motor drives is as prevalent as the calls of the geese at sunup and sun down, though not nearly as loud. So this photographer was pulled off where there was no obvious crane or goose concentration…so I stopped to…and there, up this old snag, was this Great Blue Heron.

What makes this shot interesting, besides the bird, is the bokeh…it looks a lot like a Japanese screen of some sort  behind the bird.

Canon SD4000IS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for something in the 2000mm equivalent range. 1/1000th second @ ISO 160. And I think I still had it on Kids and Pets mode.

Processed for intensity in Lightroom (see page link above).