Great Egret FlyBy

This is an image taken years ago at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville NJ. I was photographing other birds in the distance when this Great Egret flew close by me. I was able to get one image in focus as it passed by me before it changed course and flew away. It was so close I had to clip the one wingtip. I was using a Canon 20D with a 400mm DO lens.

Image with retouched wingtip & blue sky added added

Great Egrets In Florida Trees

Now that I am fully retired I am going through files from previous Photo Trips to post. The images here were taken at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Rookery a few years ago. The Featured Image was taken with a Tamron 150-600mm @ 309mm on a Canon R. The Tamron 150-600mm lens worked Great at the Rookery since birds were both near and far in the Rookery giving you a lot of opportunities to get interesting images without carrying a lot of Gear! There were quite a few nests there also since the alligators below the boardwalks helped protect the nests from predators climbing up to raid the nest here!

Displaying Great Egret, Canon R, 150-600mm lens @ 500mm

Great Egret At Brigantine

We finally got to go to one of our favorite National Wildlife Refuges, the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville NJ. On this day the wildlife was few and far between but it was still fun to get out and photograph. The cloudscapes & landscapes were Great and the Green Headed Flies were not biting as much as other visits! So it was a Great Day to be out and photograph! For this post I am using images of a Great Egret that seemed like it was posing for me instead of flying off. We did see quite a few other Great Egrets but most were far off in the distance.

Great Egret, Tamron 150-600mm @600mm, Canon R, @f/11
Great Egret, Tamron 150-600mm @600mm, Canon R, @f/11

Great Egret Gliding By

An image of a Great Egret flying by at a local wildlife area near where I used to live. It had a small lake so you had a good chance of getting close images of a variety of birds flying by. They also placed branches in the shallower water for the birds to land on for more chances to get some interesting images.
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Great Egret Landing

When we were photographing the Otters at Lake Woodruff NWR, this Great Egret flew in by the Otters. I liked the sunlight highlighting the feathers in the wing as it was landing. I was using a Canon R with a 300mm lens. The Canon R holds the highlight details much better than my other Canon cameras and has better shadow detail also.

 

Great Egret FlyBy Series At Ding Darling NWR

I am still working on my files from our Florida photo trip a couple of months ago. Here is a series of a Great Egret flying low and slow by us early in the morning at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. I was using my backup camera, Canon 1D MkIV with a 400mm f/4 DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter.

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Great Egret Wing Positions

While I was photographing at Ding Darling NWR in Sanibel, FL, this Great Egret flew by where I was photographing White Pelicans. It flew in front of me from left to right. As I was adjusting my files I thought it would make an interesting image showing the different wing positions as it flew by. ย I did not have the camera set at a high frame rate, but I thought it was still interesting.

In Camera Raw I selected the whole series, made my adjustments and opened them in Photoshop, each on its own layer in the original file. I selected the blue background and inversed the selection to select the Egret on each one. I made a new file that would fit them all in horizontally. I selected a blue sky color from the first of the series and a blue sky color from the last of the series and graduated the color from left to right for the background sky. Then added a slight bit of noise into the sky.

Now that I had my sky background, I went back to each Egret image and selected the layer of each Egret and put that Egret image in a new layer, in sequence to show the wing position sequences. If I was at a higher frame rate I would have gotten more wing positions, but I still had fun putting it together.

Great Egret – 5 Shot Egret Panorama

When I am photographing at an area in the car, I usually only use one main lens. At Brigantine I am usually using a 400mm f/4 D.O. Lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. Mainly because there is not time to switch because the subject could be gone and mostly subjects are far away. I have other equipment in the back of the van, usually with a wide angle zoom or a m43 camera with a 14mm – 140mm lens. But on the Wildlife Drive, when I come upon a subject, I do not have time to switch equipment before the subject is gone, so I make do with what I have in my hands. Many times I just shoot a multi-shot series and combine them in Photoshop. This mostly works well, plus I get a much larger file. Doing so many over the years, it seems 2nd nature now. Plus the newer CC PhotoShops work extremely well for assembling these multishot panoramas or stacked images.

 

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Great Egret Birdscape

We usually always try to photograph birds and wildlife as close as possible, trying to fill the frame with their image, or getting an interesting composition. But sometimes I like to photograph my photo subjects showing the environment they live in. Also it helps when trying to find them if you know where to look.

Great Egret Breeding Plumage

It is getting to the time of year when birds will be in breeding plumage. Which is a great time to photograph birds! Especially large wading birds. The wispy feathers and colorful lores add to the images. Looking forward to seeing what we can find. These are some from previous years.

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