This Green Heron was photographed at the Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. I parked in an area known as Miner’s Cove. Miner’s Cove has been my go to place for the past several weeks for photographing Yellow-crowned Night-Herons and Barred Owls. There was also a Cinnamon Raccoon feeding at this place. Actually I saw several types of birds and wildlife in this area.
On the 7th of this month (July 2018), this Green Heron flew to a log in the water not far from where I parked. I was able to get a few photos and I was hoping to get a few of it catching a meal but it didn’t while on the log.
Green Herons are one of the few species of bird known to use tools. In particular, they commonly use bread crusts, insects, or other items as bait. The bait is dropped on the surface of a body of water in order to lure fish. When a fish takes the bait, the Green Heron will then grab and eat the fish.
How I Got The Shot – Green Heron at Miner’s Cove
I had my camera which is the Canon EOS 7D Mark II on a beanbag draped over the door window of my pickup. I had the Canon EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens with a Canon EF 1.4X III Telephoto Extender. I don’t use the extender very often but I wanted to see how it performs on this lens. It works good and I may start using it more often. When using this extender on an f/5.6 lens I am limited to the center auto focus point only at an f/8 maximum aperture.
This bird was in a low light area and I was shooting with a shutter speed of 1/200 of a second at f8.0. The ISO was at 1250. I don’t like getting the ISO above 800 with this camera but I needed the shutter speed higher. With the shutter speed at 1/200 of a second, I thought I could get a sharp photo with the camera resting on the beanbag. The Heron wasn’t moving around very much. I had the exposure mode set at manual with auto ISO and evaluative metering. I was using single point with single instead of continuous auto focus. I would focus and recompose.