{"id":97895,"date":"2021-05-04T05:25:10","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T11:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=97895"},"modified":"2021-05-04T05:25:10","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T11:25:10","slug":"great-blue-heron-avoiding-an-obstacle-during-and-after-takeoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/04\/great-blue-heron-avoiding-an-obstacle-during-and-after-takeoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Blue Heron Avoiding An Obstacle During And After Takeoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Great Blue Herons can take off at a steeper angle than some might think.<\/p>\n

Yes, I know. I’m posting the same species in back-to-back posts again. But this is a different heron, at a different place at the refuge and both the circumstances and the setting are very different from my previous post.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Six days ago, on the same morning I photographed the Great Blue Heron I posted photos of yesterday, I found another potentially interesting Great Blue Heron at Bear River MBR. This one was closer so I had to use my smaller zoom lens to give me enough room in the frame if he took off. When I grabbed my other shooting rig I didn’t take the time to check my settings, instead I just fired away and hoped for the best. As a result my shutter speeds were very high but the photos turned out well.<\/p>\n

Great Blue Herons are big, heavy birds with huge wings that scoop a lot of air so their flight is slow and lumbering and their takeoffs are usually at low angles – almost by necessity. So if and when this heron took off I expected him to take off at a low angle and gain elevation slowly.<\/p>\n

But ‘he’ fooled me.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

He chose to take off to my right, in spite of the fact that there was an obstacle in front of him that I hadn’t noticed. In this photo the obstacle is still out of frame to the right. There are several emergent phrag stems all around his intended flight path but they’re relatively slender and small and they didn’t seem to bother him – he just threaded the needle right through them.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But one of the stems was a more substantial obstacle that he intended to avoid. It’s leaning across his intended flight path and we’re beginning to see it at the right edge of the frame.<\/p>\n

Notice his angle of takeoff which seems unusually steep for a Great Blue Heron. I guess I’m not surprised that they’re capable of such a steep takeoff angle but I sure don’t see it very often with this species..<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Now we see the entire leaning double phrag stem that he’s attempting to avoid with his steep takeoff.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Once most of his body had cleared the obstacle he also had to avoid it with his very long legs and feet.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

But his takeoff angle was steep enough to get it done.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

In fact it was so steep (for a Great Blue Heron) that even though I thought I had plenty of room in the frame I still clipped a wing in this next photo.<\/p>\n

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1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Now he’s free and clear and on his way.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

At this point his biggest concern was to gain air speed so his long, wide wings were really scooping air.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 360mm, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

After this photo I started to cut off body parts because he’d gained enough air speed to be difficult to track through my viewfinder.<\/p>\n

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I know, so what? The heron took off more steeply than usual – big deal. But for a bird photographer like me it is a big deal. Knowing typical takeoff and flight patterns of various bird species gives me a better chance to keep them in frame.<\/p>\n

But if there’s anything predictable about birds it’s that they’re unpredictable so it’s a work in progress.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, I know. I’m posting the same species in back-to-back posts again. But this is a different heron, at a different place at the refuge and both the circumstances and the setting are very different from my previous post.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97904,"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":[338,6,334,1094],"tags":[1095,49,146,712,2910,311],"class_list":["post-97895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-great-blue-herons","tag-ardea-herodias","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-flight","tag-great-blue-heron","tag-takeoff-angle","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/great-blue-heron-7501-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-psX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97895","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=97895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}