Missed it ….

I took my telephoto lens out with me when I was walking the dogs this morning as it was a lovely clear day. I saw a group of horse riders out on the beach and hoped that they might break into a canter but sadly there were thoroughly exercised by that point and were being gently walked off the beach. I managed to get some action shots of the dogs as they were running on the beach and the salt marsh and thought that these would be my blip.

When I went out this afternoon with my trusty compact in my pocket I did not imagine for one minute I would get any decent photos as the sun had disappeared, the haar was coming in and the wind disturbing the waters on the pool. As we walked quietly by the reeds on the other side of the pool, I spotted a juvenile heron amazing near to us and was able to approach sufficiently close to get a reasonable shots with my compact at full zoom. He dived for a fish but sadly did not come up with anything and this shot was immediately afterwards when the ripple from his dive was just expanding outwards. What I found particularly attractive was the thin black feather on the back of his head. I don’t know if this is a feature of juvenile herons but I cannot recall seeing one on a mature heron. What was also quite amazing was that there were not a sign of water droplets on his neck despite this being literally millisecond after his dive. Their plumage must be particularly repellent to water. Look LARGE to check this out.

Seconds later he became aware of me and the dogs and flew off but unfortunately my camera was not set up with a fast enough shutter speed to capture his flight. His concentration on diving for prey must have emboldened him earlier.