A scruffy youngster

Herons are striking and usually elegant birds with trailing and contrasting plumage.  Consequently, there must be some mother that must be a bit ashamed as to how this juvenile went out into the world this year.  Sure, it has got the right heron attitude of general and menacing distain but it is a bit shoddily turned out.  More punk than neatly quiffed and with dull plumage that looks decidedly hand-me-down and needs a lot of constant attention.  

One of the things about juvenile herons is that they don’t seem to be quite so wary as the adults.  Ok, I was in a kayak with a throw over camo cover so looked more like a floating red tree trunk with a bush on top but this juvenile didn’t mind me drifting, noiselessly, in very close.  So close that I needed to use the 200mm end of the lens to take the full body shot.  The rest are at 500mm close in.  Perilously little light as the bird was perched, in full shade, on a dead silver birch that had fallen into the water so most of these are at 1/320s at f/5.6 and ISO 1600.  I really had to pick the moment when the bird was still to avoid motion blur.  I was even more chuffed with my red-log stealth ability that I could paddle away noiselessly without disturbing it once I’d finished.