The Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) at my local marsh seem to have grown accustomed to the presence of people and some of them like to fish near the boardwalk. This one was so close that I had to lean backwards over the edge of the edge of the boardwalk to fit the entire heron into these shots—zooming was not an option, given that I was using a lens of a fixed focal length, a 180mm macro lens.
While I was observing the heron, it concentrated its activity around a rock that stuck out of the water, sometimes perching on it and sometimes circling around it. I hope the heron had better luck during the rest of the day, because it did not have any luck at all as I watched and waited in vain to capture a big catch.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
What amazing eyesight they have!
Great shots. what a magnificent bird. Thanks again for the tip on using the Gallery feature on WP. I used it today and I really like how it came out. I would never have thought to preview before posting if you hadn’t mentioned it, and that was a necessary step to be sure.
Glad it worked out for you. It is definitely not an intuitive process, but works out pretty well.
Great shots, Mike! Your herons look a bit different to the ones we have over here.
Love the second Photo…The expression and detail are really amazing.
Thanks, Charlie.
Very nice detail definition under what appears to have been difficult lighting conditions. Did you compensate or bracket?
I’ll have to go back and check. I think I was pretty much shooting into the sun, I I tried to expose for the heron, which blew out most of the detail of the water. As I recall, I underexposed a bit.
What is it about herons. They always look grumpy to me. Great shots though.
Most of the time they seem to be really focused, which may account for the heron’s grumpy look.