When the Great Blue Heron landed high in a limbless, skinny tree, I suspected he would not be there long—it was like he was perched on top of a flagpole. I managed to capture of series of action shots as he pushed off from the tree and launched himself into a dive.
The shot below give you an idea of the height of the tree in which he was perched. It looked to be dead and mostly rotted and was in the center of a marshy field. It was early in the morning and there was heavy cloud cover, which is why the sky looks so white. The photos were mostly silhouetted, but I tried to lighten the shadows a bit to reveal some details.
The next shot shows the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) a split second before he took off. He has extended his wings and is leaning forward. Obviously he had received the call from the control tower that he was cleared for takeoff.
This final shot suggests that the heron propelled himself forward with his legs before using his wings, ending up in a somewhat unusual position.
I was able to track the heron until he disappeared into the trees, which let the buffer in my camera catch up with me—as you might suspect, I was shooting as fast as my camera would fire.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
I like the shot of him standing on the tree. It makes me wonder what they weigh. It can’t be much.
Cool set of shots, Mike. Just love those herons.
Me too. It was a bit unusual for me to see one perched so high up. Usually I see them on the ground or in the water (or flying away from me).
Great series, a real sense or motion!
That first image is so intriguing with his head position. It’s hard to get a GBH and they are generally quite shy. For the backlighting, you can try spot metering and adding some positive exposure compensation to see if that helps.
Your pictures are Amazing, with a capital A!
Nice sequence Mike!