Yesterday, when we made one last visit to Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands in Melbourne (aka Viera Wetlands, in the rain, as it would happen)…this pair of Great Blue Herons had the nest all built and were actively mating. The light was a challenge for digiscoping, but I managed a whole sequence of mating behaviour. This is, clearly, the stand and stare phase. Which is followed by bill clicking, which is followed by his mounting her…which is followed by making the new generation.

Digiscoped with the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL with the Canon SD320HS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece using the Digidapter for ZEISS. ISO 400 @ 1/160th @ f5 (determined by the camera). Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 using, among other things, the HDR Scene filter.