Reddish Egret Jackpot
It’s been a very good year for Reddish Egrets in SE Texas. Hit the jackpot on Saturday morning at the Texas City Dike. My original plan was to head to Bolivar Flats with low tide and almost calm winds. Luckily, I wasn’t feeling Bolivar and decided to head to the Dike instead looking for Oystercatchers. It was a bust for Oystercatchers, which turned out to be a very good thing for me.
This Reddish Egret more than made up for it while fishing in a tidal pool area. Spent about 45 min taking tons of photos of him out my car window as he moved back and forth catching small fish with his wings outstretched. Had to switch my position once when a family pulled up and unloaded their car near me. Finally left after the action slowed down and my thumb was getting sore from using the rear focus button.
A Snowy Egret also showed up to catch fish in the same area but the Reddish Egret was having none of that and attacked the Snowy. More on that in my next post.
I could tell that this was a good outing by how many photos that I took and ended up saving. In order to reduce how many photos that I have to store, I’ll rate them using Photoshop, by either 3 or 5 stars, and then quickly delete the ones that aren’t rated. I’ll consider processing some of the 5-star rated shots with only a handful actually being processed. A typical outing for me results in 25 to 50 top rated photos. This was a very good day with 334 top rated shots.
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4X III teleconverter, using a beanbag out the car window.
Aperture priority, 1/1000 sec @ F9, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, +1 1/3 exposure compensation, 700mm
Aperture priority, 1/1250 sec @ F9, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, +1 1/3 exposure compensation, 700mm
Aperture priority, 1/1000 sec @ F9, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, +1 1/3 exposure compensation, 700mm
Quite the dance steps, terrific shots!
May 15, 2016 at 10:42 pm
Thanks Belinda. It’s lots of fun to watch these egrets dance around. Always a good time.
May 16, 2016 at 8:31 pm
Wonderful photographs
May 16, 2016 at 5:19 am
Thanks Victor for checking out my blog and commenting. I’m spoiled living so close to the Gulf of Mexico.
May 16, 2016 at 8:31 pm
Bravo! Storage is an issue.
May 16, 2016 at 11:33 am
Thanks Stephen. Once I got my original 7D, it was out of necessity that I had to learn to start rating/deleting photos. Now I’m pretty quick at it and don’t look back as I hit that delete button.
May 16, 2016 at 8:35 pm
Great shots of a spunky character.
May 17, 2016 at 8:07 am
Thanks Veda for checking out my blog and commenting. They are very spunky and fun to photograph. One of my favorite birds to watch and photograph.
May 17, 2016 at 7:42 pm
Thats wonderful……I know this is one of your favorite subjects to shoot!! Great images Tim…….
May 17, 2016 at 4:49 pm
Thanks Sheldon. I almost contacted you to head to Bolivar on Saturday but wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I’m really glad that I skipped Bolivar.
May 17, 2016 at 7:43 pm