Heron fishing series

Beef

Excuse the quality of post processing - it was done very quickly... Saw this fella at lunch time and sat and watched him for a bit - hoping he'd catch something... This is one for the wildlife heads I suppose!

rgiller

Nice set. Now all you need is a photo of him taking a poo

City-Exile

Why did you find it so hard to focus on him?
He didn't move much through the entire set.
The first 3 images would have been enough.

Beef

It's not so much the focus as the speed of him swallowing the thing while moving, and the shutter speed was down at 1/200 due to the crap light and the fact that I was using ISO100 for a different type of shot just before this happened... After the first 3 shots you can see the lump in his neck as he swallows the fish - I thought they were worthwhile... Hmmm maybe not...

deRanged

I thought the whole lot was good to see. 'specially the fish heading down his gullet, and then him starting to stride off

you'd miss part of the story if you stopped before then.

City-Exile

deRanged wrote: »

you'd miss part of the story if you stopped before then.

Why so?
When the fish is in his mouth, there's only one place it's going from there.
With photography, you shouldn't underestimate what the mind will fill in for you.

Dades

Fair play to you getting the ones with the fish at all.

I've taken a few heron shots and they can be jerky buggers sometimes! They always move just when you're clicking!

Pity you didn't have more time to play with the settings, but looks like a nice way to spend your lunch anyway.

deRanged

City-Exile wrote: »

Why so?

it shows how the heron is made for that task - fishing for and catching fish. it takes only seconds and the fish is down its throat and gone. then it just walks off. no celebration, no emotion, no angst about the dichotomy of nature's beauty versus the brutality of the food chain. just fish and go, and it'll repeat it again tomorrow.
now maybe when someone looks at a heron they'll see a highly evolved predator, not just a pretty birdy with a funny pointy beak and nice colours.
then, when they see pictures of a predator doing it's thing they'll understand it.

sometimes you have to show the photos so people won't make assumptions and miss the underlying truths.

Cabaal

Looks good, I'd maybe crop them abit though, shame about the stick/log just behind the Heron as it kind of draws the eye away

AnimalRights

City-Exile wrote: »

The first 3 images would have been enough.

Pic #5 was essential, you get to see the bulge of the fish in the Herons neck.

Paulw

While they are very good images, I think images 1-4 would have been enough. That tells the story - fish caught and swallowed whole. The rest is just follow through.

As my English teacher once said - "A good story should be like a good mini-skirt - long enough to cover the topic but short enough to keep it interesting".

Fionn

hey - thats along the quay? i've seen that bird and have been meaning to have the cam in the car if i'm going along the quay. Another for my bucket list


well done on catching this elusive bird

Beef

Glad this sparked a little bit of discussion - means it was worthwhile after all if only for the conflicting views! I mentioned I was taking a different kind of shot which is why I had to use ISO 100... I took something similar before but was trying to better it (and failed).



While trying to capture a sharp one of these the heron caught the fish...



There might be a little motion blur in that last 1...

Hence the panic - as I was in auto mode so I dialed as fast as I could to the meter value and shot the ones above... Anyways - thanks for all the comments.

@fionn - this wasn't in Clonmel but I know exactly where you may have thought it was - under the boardwalk outside Hughes' Mill!?

Fionn

ahh a different bird then

same species tho - looks very like at the old bridge there. Anyway still on the 'to do' list

Beef

Yep - it's a grey heron. There's one in Marlfield lake too and there's a heronry in the trees accross from Marlfield Church I think...

City-Exile

Sorry to rain on your parade, but, this is how to do it!

Pic1
Pic2

deRanged

You know, I prefer the first ones we saw. they tell me a story, the story I mentioned above.
The second ones don't. if I remember correctly they're Valentia's first few shots after being out of action for a fair while. a worthy story in itself, but understandably not reflected in the photographs.

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing, and those two you just linked are lovely photographs. I mean what I'm saying.

City-Exile

I know what you're saying, but lets keep things in perspective here.
He caught the common grey herron, feeding.
It's an everyday sight in Ireland.
It's not like he caught the Black Sickle Bill Bird of Paradise, performing a mating dance.

The basic story in his images could have been condensed into 3 or 4 shots.

I'm not trying to put the guy off, because he deserves credit for his persistence, but he would be able to keep more people interested, if he kept his original post more brief.

Beef

"He's" well aware of the fact that 9 images is a lot but I was just showing the fish being swallowed whole and the shots with the lump in the neck demonstrated this. It's not something I've ever seen before, so I felt some people (wildlife heads esp.) might find some interest in them. They're not technically great shots - they're underexposed and not the sharpest but with the 9 shots being captured within a 20 second timeframe I did the best I could. Your comments certainly won't be putting me off, I'm under no illusions!

City-Exile

Beef wrote: »

Your comments certainly won't be putting me off, I'm under no illusions!

Glad to hear it!
Looking forward to seeing more of your work.
Better to have these shots than no shots at all.