By Mia McPherson, on May 18th, 2012%  Snowy Egret - Nikon D200, handheld, f6.3, 1/1000, ISO 500, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural, low light Yesterday I posted a Snowy Egret in flight in what many bird photographers would call good light and the image had wonderful dynamics because of the action of the bird.
This Snowy Egret image was taken just after the sun had risen above the horizon in about the same location as the egret image I posted yesterday but at a completely different time of the year, September of 2008.
This image conveys a very different mood but both Snowy Egret images have wonderful appeal for me.
Mia
More Snowy Egret images
By Mia McPherson, on May 17th, 2012% I was photographing at Fort De Soto’s north beach on May 30th, 2008 when I had a very cooperative Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) start fishing in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico right in front of me.
 Snowy Egret about to land - Nikon D200, handheld, f6.3, 1/1600, ISO 200, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 185mm, natural light, not baited People have nicknamed Snowy Egrets “Golden Slippers” because of their yellow feet, this image really shows off those yellow feet.
I have a very nice series of images of this Snowy, all of them photographed with me sitting on the sand instead of laying on it like I do for smaller shorebirds. I still had Sandy Pants at the end of the day though.
Love that beautiful snowy white plumage against the rich blues of the Gulf!
Mia
*I pre-scheduled this post because I am away, please feel free to share this with your friends & family!
More Snowy Egret images
By Mia McPherson, on May 16th, 2012% This is another image that reminds me of the day I photographed it and the great memories of that photo session. Ron and I sat with this Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) for several minutes on the auto tour loop of Bear River National Wildlife Refuge in Box Elder County, Utah.
My Nikon D300 is giving me the fits, I’ve had it checked out locally and they can’t replicate the issues I am having of the exposure going wonky intermittently, my shutter speed will go from 1/1000 or higher and then drop to 1/4 to 1/60 resulting in pure snowy white images. Yuck. At any rate right now I am using my backup D200′s until I can get the D300 sent to Nikon.
 Black-crowned Night Heron lift off - Nikon D200, f6.3, 1/2000, ISO 500, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 350mm, natural light The day didn’t start off looking great, it looked like it might be cloudy but the light stayed over the refuge while to the south it didn’t look great. There were birds, birds and more birds on the auto tour loop and we were able to catch some wonderful action.
This heron was standing on a little spit of dry land at the edge of a marshy pond, for a bit it just stood there, then it preened a while. Before too long Ron and I could see the bird was going to lift off and fly away. We were ready!
I took a nice series of images as the Black-crowned lifted off and flew past us, I really liked the position of the wings, the look at the intensely red eye and those big, dangling yellow feet in this frame.
After leaving the refuge we stopped at the Maddox Drive In for great Hamburgers and fries.
Birthday Boy Ron appeared to have an awesome day but why wouldn’t we? Great light. Plenty of birds. Super company. I was a happy camper!
Mia
*I pre-scheduled this post because I am away, please feel free to share this with your friends & family!
More Black-crowned Night Heron images
By Mia McPherson, on May 14th, 2012% Some images remind me of the wonderful day I had when I created a certain image, this photo of a Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor) in breeding plumage photographed at the north beach of Fort De Soto, Florida is one of those files.
 Tricolored Heron in breeding plumage - Nikon D200, handheld, f6.3, 1/640, ISO 200, Nikkor 70-300mm VR at 220mm, natural light On the day I photographed this heron there was a sea fog that burned off very rapidly once the warmth of the sun’s rays touched it. I was in great company, Adrian Burke and I had met at the north beach parking lot and there were birds, birds and more birds that day. Even though I have culled any bad images from the folder for that date it is still brimming with images I haven’t yet processed.
I was sitting in water up to my bum in the middle of a small tidal lagoon when the Tricolored walked by, it was stalking prey on the shoreline and not paying much attention to me at all. I like how it looks like the heron is trying to sneak past me in this frame even though I know it could have cared less about the sopping wet person with one big eye watching it walk by.
This was taken right at the end of the photo session and it was a great feeling to have filled almost all of my memory cards… and the memories in my mind of that morning too.
Good light. Good Birds. Great company, what more could this woman ask for?
Mia
PS: If you look on the right sidebar you can see an image of me photographing this same Tricolored Heron.
More Tricolored Heron images
By Mia McPherson, on May 10th, 2012% Yes, poop happens. If there are birds there is poop. That is the straight poop… I mean scoop!
 Royal Tern, Florida Some birds poop in mid-air which it is always wise to have your mouth closed when photographing birds directly over your head. A wide-brimmed hat is kind of handy too. I’m glad this Royal Tern banked when it did or I might have gotten bombed.
 Killdeer, Utah Some shorebirds will leave the water to poop, I’ve noticed that American Avocets always exit the water when they need to pooh. Some shorebirds poop so fast you don’t even notice it. Even with a shutter speed of 1/1600 I could not freeze the motion of this Killdeer’s poop, they must be the “fast as lightning” poopers.
 Roseate Spoonbill, Florida I think that Roseate Spoonbills are Super Dooper Poopers, this bird looks like it grew an extra leg the stream of poop is so long!
Okay, enough talk about poop! (At least until the next Oh… Poop post)
Mia
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Photographing a Tricolored Heron from a tidal lagoon
Focusing on Wildlife Contributor
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