One of the nice items about late summer into early fall is that birds often set up in favorite spots for foraging / hunting / fishing. This gives a person / birder the opportunity to learn the habits of specific birds, and in my case a unique Great Blue Heron. I knew that the individual bird featured in this blog post likes to fish and hunt next to some specific lily pads. The heron’s legs resemble the pad’s stems, which allows the bird to blend in with its environment (under water) and capture food that swims out from under the lily pads.

I hope you enjoy this sequence of images. I took the photographs a few days ago, but the planning took place over 10 days prior as I learned about the bird through repeated visits. I definitely wanted to capture strikes, and the frog was a bit of luck! Notice on the minnow strike sequence how much krud the bird also “catches” for a small morsel. The heron then needs to “get rid of” all the weeds and mucks. Finally, when photographing birds with light to white colored plumage, and lots of water think reflective light. Thus, I always under expose my photographs in this kind of situation.

The Frog Strike

Random Strikes

The Minnow Strike

The Finale! (environment images)