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Green Heron


Green Heron
Photo Information
Copyright: Mark Kula (markula) Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 160 W: 0 N: 229] (870)
Genre: Animals
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2006-08-05
Categories: Birds
Camera: Canon EOS 20D
Exposure: f/6.3, 1/500 seconds
More Photo Info: [view]
Photo Version: Original Version
Date Submitted: 2006-08-06 19:55
Viewed: 872
Points: 36
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
I spent the previous weekend almost five hours away hoping that the further away from the Big Apple, the greater my chances of getting some bird shots. I came back disappointed with no decent pictures. To my surprise the very same birds I was after in Wild Creek Wildlife Management area in Vermont showed up close to my house and Saturday morning I had a fairly close encounter with Green Heron. Then, after work on my way home I took several shots of a Great Blue Heron. Obviously I don't feel like travelling far next weekend after what happened.
This is one of the two juvenile Green Herons that allowed me to approach close enough to take a couple of shots. I took the image on a monopod with exposure compensation set at -1/3, but then I brought it back to the original meter reading in the computer. Other than cropping the sides to achieve square format the image is original.
Here's what Wikipedia says:
The Green Heron (Butorides virescens) is a small heron. Some sources consider this bird and the Striated Heron or Mangrove Heron, Butorides striatus, of tropical Africa and Asia, to be a single species, the Green-backed Heron.

Adults are about 44 cm long, and have a blue back and wings, a chestnut neck with a white line down the front, a black cap and short yellow legs. Juveniles are duller, with the head sides, neck and underparts streaked brown and white and greenish-yellow legs.

Their breeding habitat is small wetlands in eastern North America, Central America, the West Indies and the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States. They nest in a platform of sticks often in shrubs or trees, sometimes on the ground, often near water. The female lays 3 to 5 eggs. Both parents incubate for about 20 days until hatching, and feed the young birds which take a further 3 weeks to fledge.

Northern Green Heron populations of the race B. v. virescens are migratory and winter from the southern United States through to northern South America. This subspecies is an extremely rare vagrant to western Europe.

Resident breeding birds in the Caribbean and Central America belong to the shorter-winged race B. v. maculatus

Green Herons stand still at the water's edge and wait to ambush prey. They mainly eat small fish, frogs and aquatic insects. They sometimes drop food on the water's surface to attract fish. Their call is a loud and sudden kyow.
blakitan, slrnovice2, Aramok, cecilia, SkyF, saguzar, Alex99, aido has marked this note useful
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Discussions
ThreadThread Starter Messages Updated
To vanderschelden: Better late than never...markula 2 10-10 09:32
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Critiques [Translate]

Hi Mark,
Superb close up shot of this green heron. Sharp, neat, and great details. Nice blurry BG. Greatly composed.

Ben Lakitan

  • Great 
  • chiliu Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 1552 W: 0 N: 1169] (6448)
  • [2006-08-06 20:48]

Hi Mark,
Excellent capture! Very nice composition, excellent details and great OOF background.
Thanks for sharing!

  • Great 
  • mamcg Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Note Writer [C: 101 W: 4 N: 29] (2085)
  • [2006-08-06 23:07]

For this much LONG note it should be written MORE about this but here I do appreciate the power of lens.

Hi Mark,
Excellent piece of work. All settings are perfect. Congratulations. I heard that some species are adapting to live in city, one example - eagles in NYC.
JC

Hi Mark, lovely shot of the green heron. It has great detail and colour, lovely composition and BG. Well done :)

I've had the same experience as you BTW, travelling miles to get something to photograph only to find it is just ten minutes away from me on foot! It certainly pays to check out your local area ;)

  • Great 
  • arfer Gold Star Critiquer [C: 2731 W: 0 N: 0] (0)
  • [2006-08-07 20:10]

Hi Mark

Nice capture of this heron.Interesting notes.Lovely composition with beautiful BG.Great POV.TFS

Rob

great shot, with excelletn POV and DOF, I love the disitiction between the heron and the BG and the OOF treetop(?) just adds that something else to the picture.

TFS
Emma

  • Great 
  • osse Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 1029 W: 0 N: 90] (7755)
  • [2006-08-08 18:48]

Hi Matk.
Nice ahot. Great colours, sharpnes, light and POV.
Well done Mark

osse

Excellent shot sir, like the composition and good isolation from the background...
A job well done...

  • Great 
  • SkyF Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 2390 W: 194 N: 1991] (8113)
  • [2006-08-12 8:32]

Hello Mark,
very nice capture, of this wonderful bird. Good sharp details and very well posed.
Well done
TFS...Sky

  • Great 
  • Zeno Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 475 W: 0 N: 926] (7979)
  • [2006-08-14 12:38]

Hi Mark,

Typical pose of this green heron. You captured him well. TFS.

regards,

Zeno.

  • Great 
  • clnaef Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 773 W: 66 N: 646] (6692)
  • [2006-08-16 15:40]

Bonsoir,
Voilà un héron qui paraît bien sur ses gardes.
Bonne soirée.
clnaef

Hola Mark,
El esfuerzo valió la pena, porque se lo dificil que es acercarse a esta familia de aves, que abundan por aquí. Me gusta sobre todo como has ubicado la garza en la imagen, el fondo borroso y la pose de estatua que tiene, como si te estuviera observando y al mismo tiempo alerta, lista para volar.
Saludos
Hernán

  • Great 
  • Alex99 Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 3174 W: 154 N: 4796] (15481)
  • [2006-08-21 1:45]

Hi Mark.
Very nice composition of this your wonderful shot. I like its very expressive and perfect blurred BG, pose, details and sharpness of the bird. Combination of lights and darks is amazing. Perfect done and my best regards,
Alexei.

  • Great 
  • aido Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 1095 W: 169 N: 1218] (4046)
  • [2006-08-24 21:46]

Hi Mark,
That's Murphy's law :-) This is excellent, I love the composition and the sense of space. Nicely isolated against that distant background and nicely framed too. Great light and exposure, good detail and colours. I think for the minimal post-processing it's a fantastic result, I'm always really happy when I get it completely right in-camera. A great shot.
Regards,
Adrian

more the type of bird shot i like...not too distant but near enough to see what it looks like in its setting..and one i havent seen in the uk..although i am not a real bird spotter
good diff foc blasts a useless background to smithereens but retains a branch of a tree to balance..really excellent compo..
cheers
geof

Hello Mark,
Good pic. Nice blurred BG.
A critique could be..or at least I would have cloned the flora to the right.
I see you have a 20D and a 350D camera. If you compare them which one do you prefer?
Once again...well done photo.
TFS
Annick

fajna zielona można wiedziec gdzie dokładniej złapana Pozdrawiam

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