The sun was barely up, but this little Green Heron (Butorides virescens) was already busy, trying to find something to eat for breakfast. Alas, I didn’t see the heron catch anything this time before it moved out of sight. (If you want to see a fun shot of a Green Heron looking directly at a frog that it had just captured, check out my post from July 2012 entitled Not Seeing Eye to Eye.)
Green Herons are a lot smaller than the Great Blue Herons that I see fairly often and quite a bit more elusive. This heron seemed to be just waking up and wandered about a little on the muddy edge of a former beaver pond before entering the water. That is how I was able to get the second shot that shows the heron’s legs.
I was probably at the limits of my ability to take photos in limited light. I was shooting at ISO 1600, about as high as I dared go with my somewhat dated Canon 50D. As is usually the case, I was using aperture-preferred mode with a selected setting of f/8. What I didn’t realize until afterwards was how slow the shutter speed was—as low as 1/20 sec for these shots, quite a bit slower than optimal for a focal length of 500mm on my 150-600mm lens. Focusing in the limited light was a little slow, but seemed to be pretty accurate. Usually I don’t dwell quite so much on the technical aspects of my shots, but I know that some folks have questions about the capabilities of the Tamron 150-600mm lens in low light and wanted to share my experiences (which are mostly positive).
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Great shots. One of my favorite birds.
These remind me of our night heron, similar build and size. Nice shots, Mike.
Beautiful
Thanks so much.
A couple of really great shots, love the detail and expression you where able to capture.
Thanks, Charlie. These little guys are elusive and I was really happy to be able to get a few good shots.
Pushing one’s equipment to the limits of its intended capabilities–and beyond–is a large part of the fun we have in pursuing this passion that we share. There are many disappointments, to be sure, but there are also enough often-surprising rewards to keep us dedicated to ever-more-adventurous experimentation. And when it all comes together, what a treat it is. OK, that worked really well–let’s see if it works under these more extreme conditions…
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Gary. That’s exactly my approach. It also reinforces to me the notion that you don’t have to spend a fortune on gear–it’s better to become really familiar with what you have.
Those are darn good shots for being hand held at 1/20th of a second! If I’m lucky I can do 1/30th occasionally.
Thanks, Allen. I think the image stabilization in the lens really helps and in some situations like this, the extra weight of the telephoto lens actually seems to make it easier to hold steady.
One of my favorite birds – they are so expressive! Thanks for reposting your previous blog post. I love the “frog in my throat” photo!
Thanks. That old posting was during the earliest days of my blog (and my journey into photography), but it still remains one of my favorites. I got some more pretty good shots of a Green Heron yesterday that should be coming soon to the blog. Stay tuned.
Beautiful!