At least once on each visit to the Space Coast Birding and Nature Festival I try to get out to Merritt Island and Black Point Wildlife Drive in late afternoon, just before sunset. The light comes in at an angle that works magic, and the birds are beginning to settle for the evening, often closer in to Drive than anytime since dawn. Yesterday I was able to make 2 loops of the drive in the afternoon, the second after 4PM. Beautiful light! As I approached one of the major ponds, where most of the resident waterfowl are currently hanging out, there was car pulled over and a couple of birders apparently looking into the hedge row that separates the ponds. What’s up with that? Of course I kept my eye out as I inched past the stopped vehicle. I saw what they were looking at and did a quick jog to the side of the road myself (far enough forward of their car so that others could get by.)

I could not get out of the car fast enough. There was an American Bittern (okay so the title and the picture gave it away already) standing, posing, in the afternoon sun, out in the open, along the back edge of the channel between the road and the pond dyke, less than a 100 feet from us. This is something pretty rare to see. I shot off a couple of bursts with my Canon SX40HS just to get the bird before it moved in out of sight…but when it showed no signs of moving, I got out my tripod, scope, and digiscoping camera and set up in front of the other birder’s car. The Bittern struck its sky-high pose and held it while I framed it variously with the zoom on the Canon SD100HS behind the scope.

What an absolute blessing!  Beautiful light, amazing bird (only the 4th I have seen). Of course between the two cars now, we attracted some attention, and all too soon there were 6 or 7 cars making an obstacle course of the Drive just there, not to mention birders and tripods. I worked the bird for 15 minutes or so before I took pity on tourists out for a late afternoon Black Point drive, packed my tripod and scope away and moved on. If I had not had a dinner engagement, and the traffic pressure had been less, I could have watched that Bittern for an hour.

Canon SD100HS in Program mode with –1/3EV exposure compensation behind the 30x eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. 1) 1368mm equivalent field of view, 1/320th @ ISO 160, f3.7 effective. 2) 1200mm equivalent, 1/320th @ ISO 160, f3.2 effective. 3) 3400mm equivalent, 1/100th @ ISO 160, f9 effective.

Processed in Lightroom for intensity and sharpness. Some color adjustment on 1) to match the tone of the other shots.

I got a few more shots (Kingfisher in great light among them), but the American Bittern made the drive and the day!