Crawfish Festival…YCNH Style

Headed to Brazoria NWR on Saturday to check out the Wood Storks.  Thanks for the tip Doug.  Slept in until 4:15 a.m. (not kidding) and headed to the NWR for some sunrise shooting.  The Storks typically aren’t there at sunrise so I had some time to check out the other birds in the area.

Found more Yellow Crowned Night Herons than I’ve ever seen on one spot before, around 100.  Most appeared to be juveniles.  My first reaction was that I already had too many YCNH shots, until I saw that they were feeding on crawfish.  Turned out to be a very good time.  Got about 50 shots in this series as he dove in for the catch and eventually flew to the road to chug him down.

Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4X III teleconverter, handheld out the car window

1/800 sec @ F 5.6, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 700mm

1/800 sec @ F 5.6, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 700mm

1/800 sec @ F 5.6, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 700mm

1/800 sec @ F 5.6, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 700mm

1/800 sec @ F 5.6, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 700mm

1/800 sec @ F 5.6, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 700mm

1/2500 sec @ F 5.6, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 700mm