Least Bittern

Gallery: AvianPosted June 10, 201088 views2 comments

After weeks of searching & waiting, the star of Ile Bizard Nature Park finally makes a public appearance. Ile Bizard has been known to be one of the biggest breeding grounds for these birds in North America. In recent years there have been an estimated 18 to 20 couples breeding in the big marsh, with the exception of last year due to the extremely high water levels. It seems that these birds will once again thrive here with the water level being much lower.

Comments

2 comments

Comment posted by Jeff Loomis on June 10, 2010 at 10:12 PM

Very nice! You don't mention your equipment, but I assume he is fairly close and that might be why the background is less blurred than expected. If it were mine, I might try darkening the background to create some separation. The bird looks sharp though, and I wish I had a photo op like this.

Registered on January 26, 2010, 68 Posts, 719 Comments

Comment posted by Mia McPherson on June 13, 2010 at 2:40 PM

Hal,

It is always nice to get this skulker out in the open like you have here, most of my images of this species have them hiding in the vegetation. Glad to know with the lower water they should be thriving there.

To my eye this bird looks a touch soft, especially the eye and the area surrounding it, without your techs I can't begin to guess of the was a dof issue or caused by movement and a slow shutter speed. There also seems to be a lack of detail, then I checked the file size and this image is only 93 kb on the server which with all the details in the bird and background tells me the image has been compressed too much and that can cause a loss of detail. This would more than likely show the details better if it were compressed to just under the 200 kb limit.

I like the habitat in the background and the great pose of the bittern. I also like the tangled feet

Registered on June 25, 2007, 491 Posts, 12566 Comments