My sleep schedule is quite whack right now, so when I say I was doing something, “early in the morning,” that means for me, translating to midmorning for most people. So, early in the morning, I looked out back and spotted one of the green herons (Butorides virescens) right down at the pond edge. We’ve had a couple sticking around for a while now, but virtually every time I’ve been aware of them, it’s when they’re flying off venting an alarm call, or chasing one another – I get the impression we have one resident that fiercely protects its territory from another frequent interloper. This time, however, I knew right where it was and had the long lens handy.
My allergies were acting up last night [even earlier this morning], resulting in dry eyes that will often give me problems sleeping, so I’d lubricated them before going to bed. Since they remained dry, I was having a hard time clearing said lubricant from them in the morning, and my view through the camera was variable but overall poor. I had to trust in autofocus, and I was quite skeptical about this as the heron was stalking among tall weeds that I felt sure the AF would snag instead. However, I was pleasantly surprised:
Can’t complain about that, really. I’d slipped out onto the deck and was moving when the heron didn’t seem to be looking in my direction, though I was still pretty far off. I snapped far too many frames, tweaking focus by hand or forcing the camera to refocus in the hopes I’d get something useful, but it did pretty well overall.
One of these days I’ll be equipped to snag video, but the tripod will have to already be set up. So for now, I can tell you that most herons seem to stalk like cartoon characters walking on tiptoe, that elaborate, extend-one-foot-well-out-ahead-and-then-pitch-the-body-to-catch-up-with-hands-held-limply-as-if-the-restroom-ran-out-of-paper-towels routine, though they never have an orchestral soundtrack to creep to.
As the heron worked the pond edge, it nicely posed alongside an unrealistically-painted metal cousin.
Ironically, today is another holiday, Trust In Technology Day, or TITD. I had intended to ignore it entirely, since I don’t (trust in technology, or at least, not very much,) but I kinda had to this morning, and it paid off, so make of that what you will. Still not gonna upload any damn thing to The Cloud, though…