So... about an hour away from my house, there's a great blue heron rookery.
I had known it was somewhere up in richmond, but I didn't know where.
Last year I found out where, but it was summer time and the activity was done. I was told to head out in february or march during nesting.
There are about 40 nests across the river from a walking path.
Here's one of the trees (and part of another)
The heron's were constantly flying around with sticks in their mouths
and would land in the trees
However, most of the nests were below the tree tops or behind the sight line. So it was very rare to see one actually landing with the stick.
This was the best of 3 partial days of shooting. Otherwise there weren't many savers in the bunch.
The b&w processing, and the flatness of the b&w processing was because it was a very sunny day, and there were big problems with the color version:
It had everything I needed, but the green leaves, brown branches and the contrastiness of the birds made it a messy photo. So I brought down the contrasts, flattened it out, so we could look more at the wonderful story.
It was fascinating watching the nest building of so many birds. Unfortunately, the trees have really leafed out now. I haven't been up in a couple of weeks, but I'm hoping to go soon, to see if there's anything left to see behind all the leafs.
Thanks for the wonderful comments and favs. Lots of ups and downs in this one -- I assume it's because of the processing. Even my husband is saying "enough of the contrasty b&w shots!" But sometimes it's the only thing that can save a shot. :)
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Place: 5 out of 126 Avg (all users): 6.6178 Avg (commenters): 8.4000 Avg (participants): 6.7164 Avg (non-participants): 6.5444 Views since voting: 2550 Views during voting: 282 Votes: 157 Comments: 26 Favorites: 5 (view)
A masterpiece. I can appreciate the effort compared to my experience trying to shoot at a rookery on the Chesapeake Bay many years ago when my parents had a house there. The nests are so high as you mentioned and the movement of the birds so sporadic it is a severe challenge being ready for a shot. You must have very strong arms.
Best one in the challenge IMO, because you can't set this up. Even though the setup shots are better "eye candy" and "likable", I respect the difficult nature of this shot and voted accordingly :)
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