Herons seem to be popular recently.  This morning I was photographing this Heron in Connecticut while it was standing on a small bridge over the dam for a fishing pond. I took several photos trying to get a reflection of the heron in the still water.  I was also playing with the settings to learn the results.  I was looking down to set the aperture to full open for my lens (F5.6, Shutter 1/1000, ISO 800) when the bird flew across the pond.  I had nothing to lose so I took the shot, to my surprise it came out with a nice symmetrical reflection in the water. The settings of the prior photo of the heron on the bridge were F9.0, Shutter 1/400, ISO 800.

The final chapter in the story of the Heron is how it moves into the tall grass of the pond to camouflage itself as it continues it's fishing expedition. What I like about these pictures is that, when I go out searching for the heron I always make it a point to stop in these areas of tall grass. If you are careful and very quiet you can see them as they are hidden in the tall grass and they are quiet, themselves, and so concentrating on their goal, that you can actually camouflage yourself and spend a long time observing the Heron's actions. The area of Presque State Park and this pond is a high pedestrian area, so although the Heron is aware of and use to people being around as he fishes, and although initially out in the open, the heron eventually migrates to these tall grass areas for some privacy and then the heron is able to relax and work on the task at hand - fishing for dinner. I did not stay long enough to see him make his catch because when he went into the grass, I knew he needed his privacy and it was more important for him to get his dinner than for me to get a photo.I didn't want him to fly away because I was a distraction to him, or making him nervous. The Great Blue Heron is a fascinating bird to watch!

In continuing my story, I forgot to mention that Presque Isle State Park is on the shores of Lake Erie, in Erie, Pennsylvania. In the next set of photos, I played with the light as the Heron continued exploring the shoreline. It was late in the afternoon and at first the Heron was facing into the sun, so the images shows that sun on the heron, then as the Heron mades it's turns in the water the Heron moved away from facing the sun and I moved with him. There is a gradual shifting of the sun and and my position and the Heron's position in relation to the sun, and in the final shot the Heron was in between the sun and my self and you can see the highlights of the sun from that position.

One of my favorite birds is the Great Blue Heron and I follow these Herons when they come into our area, from Spring to late Fall. Sometimes during a mild winter, we see them throughout the year. In this discussion I will be explaining the actions of a Great Blue Heron as he studied the shoreline of a pond on Presque Isle State Park. This Heron's story is of his fishing of this dinner as he explored the pond and the shallow areas of the water. The first set of pictures shows his movement as he walks around the pond shoreline. What I noticed in the Heron's movements was his intent and the determined direction of his hunt. In the photos you will see that the Heron and the water around him, point out his direction. The motion of the Heron and the water are very much connected. Initially the Heron is in a pool of water that surrounds it's legs, then as it moves the water creates an arrow showing the intended direction of the heron's moments. The Heron is very methodical in it's movements and the water supports and illustrates that methodical movement!

I had the opportunity to spend time in Kearney, Nebraska on the Platte river where hundreds of thousands Sandhill Cranes rest during their annual migration to observe and photograph this amazing event. I tried to capture the movement of these beautiful birds in flight by using a blurred motion pan.

During a photography day shoot  at Lake Pueblo State Park, I was thrilled to see a Great Blue Heron near a fishing lake.  After a few shots, I realized he was in serious trouble!  Broke my heart to see fishing line and a metal weight  entangled in his beak!!!  I immediately phoned the state park office of his dire situation.While I was waiting for the Colorado Parks & Wildlife officers to arrive, I watched as he kept walking close to the lake's shoreline, wanting to eat but couldn't open his beak wide enough to catch his food.  The whole time I observed him, he hopelessly  walked back and forth to the tall grasses, then back to the shoreline. I took some photos of him until  three officers  rounded the walking path forty minutes later.  One was carrying  a blanket.  Of course as soon as they walked towards him, he flew off!  I showed them my pictures, and they told me they'd keep tracking him, until they found him.   I couldn't get him off my mind, so I returned two days later.   My friend Les, who  takes walks every morning with a 33 gallon trash sack, collects garbage lazy, thoughtless slobs leave EVERYWHERE, endangering wildlife & people!   Les saw the GB Heron two days later, immediately got into his truck to the Wildlife office a few minutes away to report his sighting.    This time the rangers had a fishing net they'd  borrowed from the Pueblo State Fish Hatchery, and were able to free the GB Heron!   Les says he sees him, & he looks healthy now too! I love stories with a happy ending!

Colorado breeding season for Scaled Quail begins in February.  I observed unmated males  perching on top of the highest point they could find, like my mailbox post, readily seen, calling out to attract a mate in a hoarse, single note.  He also does this to defend his territory.  As of today, July 22, there is still one bachelor who mournfully belts out his call a few times a day, especially at sunrise and sunset. In this photo I took last week,  a torrential rain storm had just washed the atmosphere clean; ( a fire had been burning west of me for three days, polluting the atmosphere) .  So I grabbed my camera to take advantage of beautiful, clear light, finally!  Luckily the sun peaked out from the clouds for a few minutes, as I snapped this portrait of Mr. Lonely, perched on my patio swing. The background is weedy green scrubs and yellow tumbleweeds but this composition is an enigma; the sad bachelor with a happy background.  I could have posted a shot where his head is hanging, eyes downcast;  I SAW & FELT his mournful sigh in this moment.  But I decided to share this one, showing an important element to wildlife photography, pinpointing my focus on the eye/ eyes as the focal point.  Another reason I am showing a happy background is because it is attracting to viewers.  So the viewer feels happy hopefully at first glance, but then reads the story and feels sad.  (Mother Nature shown brightly from the west, an hour before sunset, in this series, so the opportunity for a  gloomy shot didn't happen.)

Sunday morning I set out to photograph in Bayou le Batre, Alabama. You might remember this place from Forrest Gump. Bubba’s hometown and the start of the famous  Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. I see the shrimp boats from B.l.Batre every morning from my back porch, so I went in search of the likes of the St. John Joseph and the Blue Thunder. Interestingly, many of the boats are run by Vietnamese fisherman. This is a bit ironic considering that in Forrest Gump, he found in the Vietnam war. Back to birding and photography. I tried to make the background important in all of these pictures and tell a bit of a story as well of this little fishing village. The first pic to me shows the laughing gulls standing at attention, first thing in the morning for the pledge of allegiance. I also tried to make it 3-dimensional with the gull on the post in the front. Much to my surprise, at the very end of the road, on the last inlet to the gulf, I found this old Casino Ship - the Argosy 5. Looks like its for sale if anyone is interested. I believe it is 5 million and change. I practiced with my lighting to F8/1000 shutter speed to get the gull in focus and the ship blurry. Lastly, I found the house that was supposed to be the home of Forrest’s mother for the movie. Turns out they filmed in one of the Carolina’s instead. For this picture, the barn swallows were moving so fast, I couldn’t get them and the house in the same shot. So, I focused on the shrub in the foreground and took a pic everytime I saw a swallow go by. This was the winner as I managed to get two in the same shot and they were in positions where in positions where they were clearly (if a bit out of focus) in view. On my way to B.l.Batre, I got the craziest shots of black vultures feeding. If you are a bit squeamish, don’t look. I attached the pictures as a reply to Isabelle’s previous post. Take a look at the crazy vulture tug of war.

I like to take photos of birds eating, feeding their young, preening, moving, I like when there is some kind of action because the story is telling itself through the photos. But sometimes a particular expressing in the bird's eyes is also telling a lot. In the three shots below their is one red-shouldered hawk who has found a squirrel and is eating it. In the second one he is spreading its wings to cover its prey from another red-shouldered hawk who is screaming at him and wants to steal the food from him. He is perched just above him. (that's the third photo).

For storytelling, I like to photograph birds feeding. This is a Swallow-tailed gull feeding its chick with regurgitated squid. It was taken in the Galapagos at 420mm focal length. The Galapagos have strict rules in approaching birds, and restrict movement near bird nesting sites, as well as timing and number of visitors. This is good, as it allows us a window to the lives of the birds, as a reward for protecting their habitat and nesting grounds.

I visited these Sandhill cranes at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge about an hour away from me. I took all these photos from my car so as to not disturb them. The first photo was a bit of a disappointment to me as it wasn't as focused as I hoped. However, it shows their habitat and them calling out to others. Their call is distinctive and it was what always alerts me to when I am nearby them. The second I also was a bit disappointed by because of only catching the rump of one of the cranes. Then I thought, what the heck, it shows how close these two are. Finally, the last one was when I isolated the bird and made sure my focus was on the eye with the aperture wide open. It still shows the grasses surrounding it which makes it a bit messy, but it does convey the habitat of grasses and wetlands that are common to the Sandhill cranes.

Tell a story:  I have a male black-chinned hummer which fiercely protects "his" feeder. I knew the second an intruder was in the area by his wide-flying arcs and deep dives.

This one also show the hills but a close up on the bird. It needs more room to fly into. :-)

Habitat: This photo of an Albatros in Hawaii, show the pretty, lush hills near  their nesting site. It is a protected area with a huge fence around it.

I've just spent far too long browsing my 'bloopers'! This last lesson from Melissa has really expanded my thinking on the storytelling aspect of bird photography. I was already aware of that aspect but even more so now. I was out walking along the Queenscliff (south coast of Victoria Australia) pier that houses an old dilapidated boat shed at the end of it. On several occasions I've noticed a few galahs hanging around here later in the day. I watched one displaying some unusual behaviour — alighting on the side of the building and continuously poking its head into a hole, then looking around. Then it became apparent what was going on! Hope the photos tell the story.

The Crested Caracara is what made me pull over for this shot. After that I noticed the mockingbird that was relentlessly harassing the caracara. Mockingbirds are know for their fierce protection of their territory and nesting area, often taking on much larger birds, animals and even humans. In the end the mockingbird won and the caracara flew away. These were taken during harsh Texas afternoon sun so I did work with shadows and highlights to soften up some.

I had one of those moments that Melissa mentioned in her video - I shot this young common kestrel flying away from me rather than towards me and was a little disappointed. The funny thing is he was on his way to inspect a red squirrel on the ground (unfortunately I didn't get a good photo of that!). But when I was looking through the photos it jumped out at me as being intriguing. The bird is flying into the darkness (which looks almost like a cave) with its bright yellow legs dangling below it.

Two photos, both of which capture habitat rather than just the bird, and one of which has unusual lighting. The first, a Killdeer at South Cape May Meadows, leaves the bird in a smaller area of the picture (but still using rule of thirds) to show more of the wetlands habitat. The second, a backlit juvenile Bald Eagle, was actually just a quick iPhone snapshot to show the location (near Belle Haven Marina on the Potomac River), but the symmetry of the trees and the silhouette of the Eagle made for an interesting picture.

For the last 4 evenings I have gone to a location where I can sit and observe the birds fly in, forage, and engage in interesting behavior.  Between 7 and 8 pm I have found at least 5 Snowy Egrets, 2 Black-necked Stilts, 2 Black-crowned Night Herons, and on the first evening 5 Black Skimmers skimming.  Also a couple of Black Phoebes that fly in and perch on a close snag.  Grackles abound, also a Mallard with chicks, and Red-winged Blackbirds.  This is a marshy area that I drive to and then walk about 500 yards to a viewing platform. This is a well-known birding location in Santa Barbara -   Andree Clark Bird Refuge. I'm using a Canon 7D Mark 2 with a very old 100-300 lens ( from film days) with a 1.4 adapter.  I've just completed the lesson on "telling a story", so I shoot a lot - (RAW) in burst mode (AI Servo).  This is the first time I've tried shooting in Manual mode, setting my aperture to F8 (the widest available to me).  The light is coming from behind me and the side as the sun is setting.  Since I am not usually able to adjust my settings rapidly enough I get many photos (of the white egrets) that are very overexposed, and as the light fails my shots of the Black-crowned Nights Herons that suddenly flew out of the reeds where they were hiding these shots were quite underexposed. There is one series of shots in which 2 Snowy Egrets were actively engage with one another.  This occurred suddenly and at first I though this was dominance behavior, but is has occurred to me rather that it is mating behavior, something I've never observed before. I have used the editing software provided with my Canon camera to edit the photos.  I don't have Lightroom and my Photoshop is very old.  All in all this has been a very interesting and challenging learning experience.  I have posted a large group of my selected  images on Flickr - where I have a PRO account.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/digolov/.  Scroll down until you find the Skimmer, always an exciting find for me. Would love to have feedback.  Dika Golovatchoff, Santa Barbara, CA.  July 8, 2020.

I spotted a pair of Carolina wrens gathering nesting material. They were on the top of a link fence and were building the nest, next to a light, on top of a speaker on the porch, which I thought was odd, given the amount of alternative natural sites on the property. I have since learned they are quite prone to nesting in domesticated areas. I thought the contrast of the habitat opposed to nature was interesting. I also chose to take a shot from behind one of them for a change from the norm.

I went to a nearby reservoir and bird Reserve yesterday evening to catch waterfowl and shore birds in the sunset, but ended up spending over an hour with a family of Rock Wrens. They were quite friendly and let me hang out with them until sunset.  I have several classically composed takes from the session but I pulled aside a few that I thought were interesting. The first shows the wren nestled next to a rock and has some unusual shadowing.  The second is of one wren in immediate flight off of a rock.

I have come to be extremely fond of environmental photos of birds as opposed to bird portraits and try to capture as much of the environment as possible while still keeping the bird or birds sharply defined, even if small in the frame. Two examples are the backlit Whimbrei and the Pied Avocets with their distinctive black and white patches and curved bills. I also like capturing stories as this one  in a series depicting Nazca Boobys courting and nest building.