Nest Building at High Island

Made another trip to the High Island on 4/17.  Hardly no one around and very few skeeters so it was a nice change of pace.  I was hoping to get some decent back-lit shots at sunrise but the birds weren’t cooperating except for a couple on the manmade platforms, which make such a lovely perch in the photos.  I was going to leave early but decided to stick around.  The action got better as the light got worse but it was still all good.  There were one pair of Great Egrets that were putting on a good nest building show.  One was sitting on the eggs when the other would fly to the ground to pick up what you would think was the largest stick in the world with all of the fanfare when he got back to the nest.  This guy wasn’t finding much from a size perspective but it seemed to be all for show anyway.  They did this several times in a row and I spent about 1/2 hr focused only on them.

Since my 7D is in the shop getting repaired, these were taken with the ‘ol 40D and my 100-400 lens.  I usually use aperature priority but decided to switch to manual mode this time for last half of the morning.  Worked very well as the sun got higher in the sky and the lighting changes were less intense than right at sunrise.

1/100 sec at F5.6, ISO 500, spot metering, aperture priority.   The red dots is the sun poking through the trees.

1/1250 sec at F5.6, ISO 250, -1/3 exp comp, spot metering, aperture priority

1/800 sec at F6.3, ISO 200, manual mode

1/800 sec at F6.3, ISO 200, manual mode

1/1000 sec at F6.3, ISO 200, manual mode

1/1000 sec at F6.3, ISO 200, manual mode

1/800 sec at F6.3, ISO 200, manual mode

1/800 sec at F7.1, ISO 200, manual mode