Great Egret. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A great egret stands in a shallow wetlands pond.
Great egrets are many things. They are beautiful in flight, slow and purposeful, with a flare of wings while landing that is always graceful. They are also remarkably common, and here on the west coast you can find them almost everywhere — along freeways, at the ocean, in fields, beside creeks. They are skillful and effective hunters, quietly and intently approaching prey until, with a sudden extension of the long neck, they grab their prey.
Photographing them can be an odd experience. Sometimes a standing bird (in water like this one, or on land) may allow a close enough approach to almost fill the frame using a long lens. At other times they have strict personal boundaries and will suddenly take flight if you get too close. Often they don’t fly far away, but photographing this is awkward since one is almost photographing the bird from behind as it departs. This specimen stood still in the shallow water, and I had so much time to photograph that it was still there when I finished.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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