Snowy egret

At California’s Martinez Regional Shoreline last November 2nd I got low and slowly worked my way closer and closer to the bird shown here. Later, profiting from a site that tells how to distinguish white herons, I identified my subject as a snowy egret, Egretta thula.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Contrasts

See how this gleaming white great egret (Ardea alba) contrasts with the bare branches of the dead trees all around it. You can also contrast this bird with the somewhat bedraggled gull you saw a few days ago hunkered down on an Indiana beach. And then there’s the contrast with the second and much smaller egret below and to the left of the prominent one. The great egret, by the way, is the largest white heron in Texas.

Today’s photograph comes from Southeast Metropolitan Park on September 1.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

H. H.

On the same August 23rd outing to Meadow Lake Park in Round Rock that led me to the D.D., or dense dodder, I photographed this H.H, or handsome heron, flying low over the lake. My subject appears to be the largest of the white herons in Texas, the great egret, Ardea alba, where alba means ‘white’ (think of albumen and albino).

I haven’t had much success with pictures of an individual bird on the wing, but this one strikes me as not too bad. For the technocrats among you, I’ll add that I panned with a shutter speed of 1/800 sec. to freeze the bird’s motion and used a high enough ISO to yield an aperture of f/16 that would keep the heron sharp in case the focus was a bit off.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman