After my close up experiences at Gatorland in Orlando yesterday, my colleague and I spent a few hours at the Rich Grissom Memorial Wetlands (otherwise known as Viera Wetlands) in Melbourne. Viera is one of those repurposed settlement pond complexes at a municipal sewage treatment plant. They have added Observation towers and keep the roads along the dikes graded for easy birder access. It is my favorite place to photograph birds in a more natural setting. Waders and ducks, and the lesson common Bitterns, and even Lumpkin, can be found there most days.

This time of year the Great Blue Herons are just beginning to build nests in the broken off tops of the palm trees. They are considerably further away than at Gatorland, but still well within digiscoping range. This image is actually phonescoped, using my Samsung Galaxy S4 on a universal smartphone adapter from Novagrade behind the eyepiece of a ZEISS DiaScope 65FL.

Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.