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Project Noah Nature School
Ardea herodias
Oct. 5, 2010, at the Ridgefield NWR. I was giving the 7D a try with my 400mm + 1.4X converter. Since I have to manually focus, I used the live view with 10X zoom feature to attempt focus on this blue heron. It's not perfect but I have more trouble focusing manually with the viewfinder. Also, I have a video of this blue heron taking on a good-sized snake, which happened shortly after taking this heron shot. This video was taken with the 7D with 400mm + 1.4X TC. Please excuse the camera jiggle as I really meant this to be a test and I didn't think it would turn out so interesting. But, the snake gave the heron some trouble and it made for a 5- 1/2 minute job getting the snake down. The good stuff doesn't start until about the 1:21 mark so skip ahead to that point if you like. The heron basically tries to disable the snake and the snake knots itself up in this first 1:20. The rest of the video is more eventful as the snake uses its tail to try to strangle the bird then wraps itself around the bird's beak--all while the snake's head has already been swallowed.
Almost anywhere there is shallow water for fish and amphibians, and also fields where mice, voles, and snakes live.
Spotted on Oct 5, 2010
Submitted on Sep 14, 2011
4 Comments
Thanks for the nice comments and glad you enjoyed the video!
Grate shot and the video is really good.
All I can say after that AMAZING video is "burp!" Wow! That snake sure gave him a time! Thanks for sharing that! It almost looked like the heron was looking around for a friend to help him out! That snake was resilient. Very cool!
has a very serious look!!