Wow -- what an exciting time. I watched the nesting process in feb/march (it's really too bad that this is an hour away -- I'd be there every morning!!). And when I was watching, someone told me I needed to come back when the shad were running.
OMG!! Everybody was fishing! I'm watching the GBHs fishing, and up pops a cormorant with a fish! And then immediately goes back down again. Man those things are fast! By the time I'd get close to finding them with the camera, they'd be gone again. I finally got one. :)
Then osprey would swoop in -- right in front of me:
Most of the time I was too busy with the herons, so I'd miss the shot. I really need to hire a spotter. If you were to actually watch for the osprey to come in, you'd get some spectacular fishing shots. But since they came only about every 40 minutes or so, it was much more fun shooting the herons. But if there was a kid there watching for them... maybe my son wants to miss school for a day. :)
The thing that was especially interesting about the day was that there had been quite a bit of rain, so the river was quite high. The herons would still go in quite deep. I had only seen them wading in shallows before. Not going into deeper water or stronger rapids. It was pretty cool.
That looks like a blast to see (and photograph, of course). But there are so many birds ... to be thorough, I think you may need company on the next shad run. I know at least one photographer in VA who'd be interested ;-)
That's a big fish in his mouth - bet it was fun to see them swallow the fish, too.
You must have gone back and added the exif data? Or is there something what I'm seeing in the box that Richard is interested in?
Off to check out the others and read your narrative now.
Excellent wildlife shots. I'd find it infinitely more interesting and educational if you'd include exif data.
I'll try to remember -- it always seems like so much work. :)
I pretty much always shoot wide open on my 100-400 lens, because I need as much light as I can get, and then I adjust the ISO for how much movement I expect from the animal.
Since I was zoomed in pretty far, it was f5.6. I had to have an 800 ISO, because I was hoping for heron striking at the fish shots, and figured I needed about 1/800-1/1200 to get the shot. This one clocked in at 1/1000.
I realize that shooting wide open isn't the best option, but when I stop it down, I need to raise the iso even higher, and I get a lot of noise on my 7D. Plus, I do like the DOF that wide open gives, so I live with the problems.
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