A Two-heron Day

This year has been an outstanding kayaking season. Just about every time I hit the water something cool happened and this 2nd trip to the Somo river was no exception. Plus my stomach didn’t give me fits so that was a plus. Instead of heading to the turtle backwater which is my usual M.O., I went to the next one up river on the same side. I rarely paddle here because it isn’t as deep and I am in plain sight of any fishing and/or pontoon boats that head up the main channel. It’s better when I’m relatively isolated as I can be in so many locations on this river. Plus not many want to go up the main channel very far. So I explore a lot and I flushed this guy inadvertently –

Lucky for me it is habituated to humans and didn’t go far. I really like that shot even if it is a bit wider than I usually go for bird photos. It’s the two main angles that I think complement each other quite well. Long and skinny and going in opposite directions. The old stump’s roots even have a similar color to the heron’s feathers. It kept an eye on me and also kept trying for some lunch, but I didn’t see it catch anything.

That’s not the best photo in the world because of the stump directly behind it, but oh that wingspan! The kayak wasn’t moving too much and I could get reasonably close. I changed up my Wildlife custom mode a little bit because I think the predictive-autofocus wasn’t as on target as I’d like. It was set to High which uses predictive in the algorithm, but M and L don’t so I switched to Medium (6 frames-per-second) and it seems slightly better. The shot is decently in focus though, not every frame was which is the nature of C-AF, but I am especially happy that one is crisp. I did my best to accentuate those wings in post to show how the light reflects up into them from the water. So graceful despite a somewhat awkward physiognomy. Here it is in another spot a few minutes later. A bit of a raised foot here, shades of things to come.

Most of the time Painted turtles duck away from me as I slide the kayak through plants, and I always feel a little bad about disturbing them. This time I parked and scanned with the binoculars to see if any were near enough to photograph. This one was, although it doesn’t look too awake yet –

There were still quite a few dragonflies around so I got lucky with this shot of a Blue Dasher having a quick bite to eat. They are so much smaller than the Spatterdock flowers which are a little bigger than golf balls, but I like the background and the flower perch itself. Dine and dash indeed.

So I headed out of this little pocket and up the main channel. Unfortunately following in the wake of a fishing boat that was basically a floating ashtray. OMG the smell! So gross. It stopped not far from the Eagle nest by where the river splits off a side channel that eventually connects with the main one again, but far enough from me that I couldn’t smell them anymore and look who let me get close!

OMG a Green Heron!! I was so shocked that it wasn’t flying away that I basically slammed on the brakes and lodged the bow onto a log in the shade. I was maybe 20-25 feet from it and oh, it was so amazing. They’re quite small, much smaller than the Great Blue cousin up there; about crow sized. In the direct sun, all the colors came out including those incredible orange feet! Due to some floating stuff on the water, I didn’t get the whole reflection and so cropped it off more to not make an issue out of it. I wish the light had been a bit better, but it was sunny.

A side note on my kayaking habits. Mostly I try to keep to undeveloped or lightly developed waters because it’s quieter. Without people in their yards making noise or, worse, on jet-skies or whipping boats around to drag kids on tubes, it makes for a much more peaceful experience. A few pontooners or fishermen is one thing, but I even try to avoid that when possible. Peace, tranquility and solitude is what I’m after. That’s the upside – I feel more connected to nature even though there might be a road or boats on a nearby lake that I can hear. Plus isolated lakes and rivers attract fewer yahoos that can make photography more difficult. The downside is that wildlife is a tad more wild and wary of humans, taking off at the first sign of our presence. This bit of the river has many homes/camps and a lot of boat traffic, both human powered and motorized, so the birds are a little more relaxed around us and easier to photograph. A worthwhile trade off for some time with this cutie, check out at foot and the light reflecting up on that adorable little butt!

The first time I ever saw pictures of these birds, I was surprised at how colorful they are. Many years ago I got quite close to one in the kayak, but it was in a big tangle of branches from a fallen tree and so I don’t have any photos, but I got to watch it and all the different shades of turquoise and rust in the feathers. They are so sweet in a vicious predator kind of way. I think the light and dark streaks on the underside of the neck keep it camouflaged from anything under water. The rest of the coloration and markings keep it very well hidden once it goes into bushes or grass. Not that I’d know from experience or anything. Even the outline of the head is broken up by the color and pattern disruption.

The second photo has a crap ton of distraction removal done because it was approaching a big old stump or log just behind it that was basically a giant eye sore. Being as big or bigger than the bird meant it had to go. Generative Fill and Content-Aware Fill have gotten so good that it’s feasible to make changes like this. If I hadn’t told you, you’d never know.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I thought I had more pictures, but my C-AF let me down and all the shots of it catching a really big tadpole (probably a Bullfrog that won’t make the transition) are blurry beyond salvaging. So bummed. Like other predators, they do a lot of shaking and bashing before swallowing it down. Everything has to eat and protect itself from injury, but it’s hard to not feel empathy for the prey. Swimming along, minding its own tadpole-y business (except for when it gobbles down some other creature) and WHAM! – a giant beak stabbing and slashing. It all happens in just a few seconds and then the heron moves on to another spot. Eventually it did fly off a bit and I was too late to get it on top of a log (of course) so these are the only decent photos I have, but at least there are two that don’t completely suck. I will continue to see about which settings work best for action sequences. The same settings that failed here, worked fine for the hunting heron the last time I was on the Somo. Bah. I’ll see if I can improve for future sessions.