Sunday, February 1, 2009

Purple Heron (Ardea Purpurea): My Best Action Shots

I really pushed my luck that day. It was raining heavily when I reached Likas Bird Sanctuary that I turned back to Tuaran after sending my wife to her office. It wasn't long when the rain stopped and I quickly made a U-turn to continue with my plan.

Obviously, the weather was far from perfect. It drizzled when I went into the reception to pay the RM3.00 fee. I smiled when I register in...a familiar name just above mine, Karim M. One of the hard-core birders around.

It was quiet as I slowly walked towards the hide. I didn't even see any egret, which is common there. "Is this one of the days when I'll go home empty handed?" I asked myself. After about an hour or so in the hide, with no activities whatsoever, I mounted my 1.4X to try my luck on the Purple Herons nesting on the far end of the swamp areas.

I made a few attempts but the results were not desirable. Frustrated, I started to pack my gear and ready to move when an opportunity came knocking. Taken at frame-filling sizes, the ugly background is the least of my concerns... Enjoy;












Indeed these are my best action shots of this bird ever... Thank you for reading!

4 comments:

Redzlan aka Tabib said...

Yes!.. I enjoy this heron in flight series.
I tried heron flight shots for the past few days but no keeper, either blurry, out of frame, wing clipped etc.

Unknown said...

Beautiful flight shots of this challenging subject (given its size). Till date I have never been successful in getting flight shots of the purple heron...Thomas

Redzlan aka Tabib said...

I think better to answer your question here;
-----quote------
Hey, if you dont mind me asking, how do you post your pics to such size? nice to look at. I Find mine too small and not at desirable size. Any tips?
-----unquote-----

I find your header, nice to look with that rain drops, maybe you want the subject (bird) bigger.
The trick is to choose the big picture file, so that we can cropped heavily to taste.
My header size is at 1000px X 251px
just nice for 15in screen. I have edited a pic from your blog (a big file in flight) Wreathed Hornbill
HERE

But this file from your current header have insufficient size to be croped nicely resulting in
not so nice header pic here

Jordan Sitorus said...

Thanks for the tips Tabib..Great!