After two days of shooting in Florida, first at Viera Wetlands and then at Merritt Island, I have a lot of bird pics to share. This Green Heron was intent on the hunt. It would freeze in these ungainly positions for up to three minutes, strike (and usually miss), and then adopt a new pose. I watched it for about 15 minutes and in that time it got three small minnows. Not an easy way to make a living.

It was not easy to photograph either, being deep in reeds, and, from the best angle for showing the bird, against the light. Still I persisted, using both my digiscoping rig (Canon SD100HS behind the eyepiece of a ZEISS DisScope 65FL spotting scope) and the Canon SX40HS with various settings of the digital tel-converter.

For the next shot I walked down the dyke to get to the sun side of the bird, but the reeds were even more obstructive.

The sun really brings out the green in the Green Herons wings and highlights the yellow framing.

The next shot is with the Canon SX40HS using full optical plus 2x digital tel-converter. With the smaller camera, and without the tripod of my digiscoping rig, I was able to work closer to the bird.

And finally a shot of the business end showing the bird’s concentration, again with the digiscoping rig.

1) Digiscoped with the Canon SD100HS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for an equivalent field of view of 840mm. 1/1000th @ ISO 200, f2.8 effective. 2) Digiscoped at 840mm equivalent, 1/640th @ ISO 160. f2.8 effective. 3) Canon SX40HS at 1680mm equivalent (840 optical plus 2x digital tel-converter), f5.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 200. 4) Digiscoped at 2100mm equivalent, 1/200th @ ISO 200, f5.8 effective.

Processed in Lightroom for intensity and sharpness.