Bird in Flight !!!!

Today the dogs' afternoon walk looekd as thpugh ti was going to be a quick dash out between (heavy) showers. However, it turned out to be one of my most productive blip seeking sessions. As it had just finished pouring down I was looking for rain drops on leaves as a likely target. However, as we walked down beside the river a heron alighted on the top of the bridge just after we had passed it. I turned round and managed to grab a couple of shots before it flew off. Though the bird was sharp and readsonably exposed I was shooting pretty well into the sun so the sky bleached out and would have required a lot of work recover on the computer without losing detail on the bird.

I then saw a sycamore bud that was literally bursting open and you could see all the leaf bunched up inside it so that became my next subject.

Walking round the corner and looking over the sea wall I looked down to see that the heron was now standing at the sea water's edge. Stalking herons with two dogs in tow, one of which was on a lead and wearing a bright red coat, is not the easiest task. Fortunately they were quiet and not at all interested in the bird. I managed to grab one shot then as I moved round to get a better angle for the bird's reflection he/she took off. I followed it round shooting off a couple of shots in a fairly desultory fashion as I had not prepared for action shots and was shooting single shot AF.

It flew round and then landed on the edge of the pool about 25 metres away.
I moved forward towards it but it flew off again to the other side of the pool. Heron safari over so I thought ! I noted that the pool where it had been standing had some lovely reed reflections in the gentle ripples of the pond and shot off a couple more shots. It was beginning to cloud over again so I thought I had better head for home and then as we walked alongside the river the heron yet again landed on the water's edge just just in front of us. by this time I had put my camera away so I only managed to get one final shot before he flew off.

When I got back home and eventually put my images on to the computer I was absolutely delighted to see that I had got two absolutely pin sharp pictures of the heron flying over the sea and the saltmarsh. Normally to get birds in flight I might have to shoot off two hundred or more images and spend a lot of time getting myself into the right position. This had been taken with my compact whereas I would usually be using my pro camera gear - a SLR with a decent zoom lens on continuous shooting with the servo autofocus. It had also been fortuitous that I was shooting above the bird and did not have the exposure problems of shooting up into the sky.

Serendipity !!