Just one bird this time—I promise

I woke up to rain this morning that continued on well past noon. So for a while I honestly believed that I'd be picking today's images from among a small selection of Chickadee photos I'd taken after I ate breakfast—because it was so overcast outside, by the time I had to leave for work I'd only gotten a few that weren't at least somewhat blurry.

Then around 3:30 this afternoon, Yoshi came back from a trip over to the museum and told us there was a Blue Heron standing out next to the pond. Naturally I grabbed my camera and started clicking away. Although it was no longer raining it was still pretty gray outside, so that combined with the distance made for photos that were decent but nothing to write home about. After about 15 minutes, though, Yoshi started worrying that the bird was injured in some way, as it hadn't moved the entire time I'd been outside, so I said I'd walk toward it to see how it'd react. I got fairly close to the pond—certainly closer than I'd ever been to a heron that could see me as well as I could see it—before it finally did react and start walking along the opposite shore. Satisfied, Yoshi went back inside. However, by that point I'd become kind of curious as to how near I could get before it bolted.

Eventually, I made it to within about 25 feet of the bird and it still wasn't looking even remotely concerned. But I decided not to push my luck any further, and instead focused on getting some good shots:







At this point, my hands felt like they were nearly frozen and the bird was making its way back toward its original starting point, so I headed back inside. How was I supposed to resist, though, when a few minutes later Yoshi told me it was standing out there preening?



Once it was done with that, the heron then appeared to see something on the ground that it could make a meal of and started stalking it. When it had gotten within range of whatever it was, it stabbed down with its beak and then started flapping its wings (I presume for balance):















The embarrassment of riches continued when the heron then headed for the water's edge to take a drink. I wish I'd been aware enough to make sure the entire reflection was in the frame, but at least I got some of it:



Loved the string of water drops under the bird's beak:



In this one you can see the splash it made when it went back for another drink:



And again I loved how you can see the drops of water coming off the beak, even in the reflection:



I liked how well you can see the heron's foot in this shot:



And finally, I just thought this image came out rather nicely, so it seemed like a good one to end on: