Great Blue Herons are one of my favorite birds to photograph. They have great plumage. They get into interesting shapes. And they are easy! They pose. This bird, caught looking at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Titusville Florida, held this unlikely pose (unlikely unless you have spent much time with Great Blues) for long enough so that I had no trouble catching it, even in the limited field of view of my digiscoping rig. There is a lot of tension in the shot, highlighted by the light in the bird’s eye, which is rotated forward to look along the bill. Something certainly had this bird’s attention.

Very careful observers will see that I was shooting through reeds, and there are two in the far foreground, so out of focus as to be little more than a shadowy wash of color, which cross right at the bill.

Canon SD4000IS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of a 1200mm lens on a full frame DSLR, 1/1250th @ ISO 125, f4 (camera limited).

Processed for intensity and sharpness in Lightroom. Cropped for composition.