Black-Crowned Night-Heron Enjoying Breakfast

This is from a visit years ago to the Celery Farm Natural Area in Allendale NJ. The Celery Farm is a 107-acre freshwater wetland with Lake Appert. It is open to the public during daylight hours every day of the year. The centerpiece is Lake Appert, a freshwater marsh that attracts waterfowl, herons, and rails. Even though it is smaller in size, it is Great for photography. Often times you will see birds & wildlife fairly closeup. But you will still need a long lens to get very Closeup Images. This Black-Crowned Night Heron was close to shore by one of the paths to the Lookout Platform. Earlier in the morning the wading birds are closer to the shoreline so you can get fairly close images. According to the Camera Raw Data this image was taken @ 5:16 AM with the early morning warm light warm giving a glow to the out of focus Lake behind the Heron. I found the best times there to be in the early morning. The Lake also attracts quite a few Ospreys and being a smaller lake you can usually get some interesting Osprey fishing images. Image here was taken @ f/5.6 for a smoother background with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4X teleconverter.

Cropped Version for Detail

Black-Crowned Night-Heron Foraging

Here is a series of images from a previous trip to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville New Jersey. Now that I am fully retired and closed my studio, I have time to go through images from previous photo outings that I have on my backup drives. This is a series of images of a Black-crowned Night-heron in breeding plumage, foraging for a meal. It was darting back and forth really working this area in one of the channels along the Wildlife Drive. It was fun to watch the Night-Heron and also be close enough to the Wildlife Drive to get closeup images.

BCNH_Brig_v1_MG_6943BCNH_Brd_Plmage_v2BB_Brig_400mm_1_4X_7D_MG_6947

BCNH_v3_Brig_400mm_1_4X_7D_MG_7021BCNH_v5_Brd_Plumage_Brig_400mm_1_4X_7D_MG_6977

BCNH_brig_v2_2img_pan_400mm_1_4X_7D_MG_7206

2 image panorama (horizontal images)

BCNH_v1B_Brig_400mm_1_4X_7D_MG_7155
BCNH_Brd_Plmage_v2_400mm_1_4_7D_MG_7163

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