{"id":76721,"date":"2019-10-06T05:09:42","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T11:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=76721"},"modified":"2019-10-06T05:18:43","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T11:18:43","slug":"snowy-egret-potpourri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/06\/snowy-egret-potpourri\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowy Egret Potpourri"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little of this and a little of that…<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Followers of Feathered Photography already know that two weeks ago I spent some time photographing Snowy Egrets fishing and squabbling on duckweed-covered water at Farmington Bay WMA. The egrets in these first two photos were in an area of clear water but most of it was covered with duckweed.<\/p>\n

This was a strike for a fish. My very high shutter speed completely froze the action and because the bill of the bird went straight into the water there was no water splash. So it may look like a static pose but believe me, the strike was lightning-quick.<\/p>\n

I like the stretched-out posture of both the bird and the reflection.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

All of the fish I saw the egrets take were small-fry not much longer than an inch so you have to look fairly carefully to see this one. But there were enough small fish in the water to eventually bring a lot of egrets in and I had fun trying to take photos of them on their approach and as they landed on the water or took off.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Here one of the egrets is about to touch down in its chosen spot as it skims the surface with its “golden slippers”.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

A different bird just prior to plopping its feet into the water during landing. Getting proper exposure on these bright white birds against a darker background was problematic but I did the best I could.<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This shot was taken just after the bird took off. When my shutter was timed just right I often got this distinctive wing position at lift-off.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s another example of that wing position.<\/p>\n

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1\/8000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

The egrets were in close proximity to each other as they were fishing so it was often difficult to get a single bird isolated in the frame.<\/p>\n

Their normal sleeked-down profile would transform instantly to this prickly, aggressive appearance whenever they challenged another bird that was too close. Brief fights often broke out but I don’t like any of my fighting shots because depth of field issues made it almost impossible to get multiple birds sharp.<\/p>\n

Waterfowl hunting season opened this past weekend so the tranquility at Farmington and Bear River will be a thing of the past through January. I’m always just a little bit vexed by the irony of hunting at places referred to as “refuges” but that’s a story for another day.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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A little of this and a little of that…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,2782,392,375],"tags":[4249,1444,1008,141,144,146,2161,4766,579,287,851],"class_list":["post-76721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-snowy-egrets","tag-duckweed","tag-egretta-thula","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-fish","tag-fishing","tag-flight","tag-golden-slippers","tag-hunting-season","tag-landing","tag-snowy-egret","tag-taking-off"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/snowy-egret-5518-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-jXr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}