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Day: January 7, 2023

Shooting white birds

Posted on 2023-01-072023-01-08 by Allison J. Gong

Since the fields at the marine lab flooded, birds have been gathering in the vernal pools. It’s frog-hunting season for the herons and egrets! This morning there was a group of about a dozen egrets were stalking prey in the area near the old road, and I finally had my camera with me to take photos and it wasn’t raining horizontally.

For anyone interested in such things, I took these photos with a Sigma 150-600mm lens on my Nikon D780 DSLR body shooting mostly in the 200-400mm range.

Snowy egret (Egretta thula)
2023-01-07
© Allison J. Gong
Snowy egret (Egretta thula)
2023-01-07
© Allison J. Gong
Great egret (Ardea alba)
2023-01-07
© Allison J. Gong
Great egret (Ardea alba)
2023-01-07
© Allison J. Gong
Snowy egret (Egretta thula)
2023-01-07
© Allison J. Gong
Snowy egret (Egretta thula) and butt end of a mallard drake
2023-01-07
© Allison J. Gong
Snowy egret (Egretta thula)
2023-01-07
© Allison J. Gong

No great blue herons today. Another storm is blowing in now, and the birds will take shelter until the wind and rain are less violent. Forecasters predict that today’s storm will be stronger than the one that tore up the coast a couple of days ago. Fingers crossed we keep power!

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