Chasing Egrets

I’m not one for patience when it comes to photographing wildlife. I have a rule – if you can’t sneak up on it, don’t bother. This is because whenever I do bother I manage to scare the animal, bird or insect away. Rule one basic photography – anything that moves is difficult!

I rely on the ‘right place, right time’ principle. And luck. Not a lot of it comes my way to be honest.
We took a little adventure on the weekend to a waterhole by the highway. One of those places that exist in the realms of mud-maps with ‘turn-left-at-the-jerry-can’ directions.

So, the gorge was gorgeous, and we were spoiled with a wildflowers and bird-life. Several flew overhead, hid behind rocks and dove for fish. Of course I was waiting for my husband who was busy spraining his ankle, so I decided I might just do a bit of bird chasing.

Let me tell you how this normally goes: Bird flies over, lands just out of reach of the 200mm, I stand quietly, reach for the camera…and the bird flies away. If I am lucky enough to have the camera on me, is sneak, then snap, snap, snap while whatever I’m photographing flies, runs, scampers away. Normal results are nothing.

This particular day however, a couple of egrets flew over. After two attempts of sneaking up, I kept the camera close by. One of my snapping sprees yielded this. 

Canon EOS 50D f/5.6 1/6400 shutter ISO 500 +1 setp 150mm. Cropped. Shutter Priority

 The cropping diminishes the quality, which is a shame. It has been heavily cropped, and colours slightly edited and enhanced in Photoshop RAW.