I Can See it For You Wholesale

By popular demand.

Also, obligatory bunnies.

This guy was feeling pretty secure in the piling he was standing, as a result of which, I was able to — slowly and carefully — get pretty close. A lot closer than I usually get. I have historically had much difficulty in really getting a clear shot of a cormorant’s eye — which frankly looks less like a bird’s eye and more like the eye of some Egyptian deity.

Because their eyes are so awesome, and I have so few shots were the awesomeness comes through, I was excited about the prospect of getting a really good shot of the face and eye, and I went ahead and shot 100-150 shots in the space of maybe twenty or thirty minutes, which (together with what I’d shot before that) filled up the card.

During that whole time, this guy was pretty much looking around, looking at me, looking at the water, checking for his buddies, and then looking at me again. Not to entertaining. Nonetheless, I pounded away on the shutter, trying to ensure that I would get a shot with a sharp, clear image of the eye.

Then, when I was literally on the last shot left on the card, he suddenly broke into this enormous yawn, revealing the surreal color of the inside of his mouth.

Then he took off.

Thank, you photographic deities.

Taking good pictures of birds is not easy. Taking pictures of birds at moments when they transition between stillness and motion is particularly hard, because of the need to capture motion, compose by anticipation, and keep the eyes in the depth of field. All of these problems are amplified when you’re photographing a highly contrasty animal like a Snowy Egret, and they’re amplified again when the scene includes both bright highlights and deep shadows.

This isn’t a reason not try, of course; on the contrary, this is exactly why these shots are so fun to attempt, even if they seldom turn out well. This is one of my best to date. I spent about half an hour watching him fly back and forth between two sides of the channel — presumably on the assumption that the fish are always tastier on the opposite bank. I observed his body language, his flight paths, and the tricky illumination. I also took many, many completely unusable shots before I got this one.