Heron nest building

As a background on this shot which is anything but what I like to achieve technically, I was shooting some shore bird shots on the Gulf of Mexico when this Great Blue Heron flew by with apparently some food in his mouth. I quickly switched my camera to action mode and began shooting as he flew away from me and away from the water ultimately landing about 50 meters to the East of my position on the beach. As I continued to fire I noticed that he was bouncing up and down and suddenly another heron looked up as he jumped up and down showing off his catch. The female heron strolled over to him, he handed her what turned out to be nest material and she in turn turned towards the nest and placed the new materials in place. It was the first time, as many times as I have photographed Great Blue Herons, that I have seen two of them relating. I love the way they look when they are in breeding plumage as in this photo.

Now understand, that the action was so far away, that I did not appreciate or understand what I had captured until I took the shots out of the camera. I subsequently learned that the males gather the nest materials, do a little dance on return and the female builds the nest. I have shots of this complete sequence, but the one I wanted to post is this one where the hand-off is being made between the material provider and the nest builder. As far as the shot, it is what is - it happened very quickly and at 50 meters, my options were rather limited by the 400mm lens I was using. Bottom line a unique, interesting shot that under the circumstances was the best I could do technically. Shot at f5.6, 1/2000, ISO 500.