First Sighting of the Great Blue Heron

Saturday, I photographed at two locations in the morning, and the sun, at Allens Pond wildlife refuge and in the afternoon when it became very overcast from the approaching edge of the remnants of hurricane Bill, I was at Oliver Mill Park in Middleborough. There I was planning on doing some macro photography, and was utilizing my Tamron 180 mm macro lens. I had walked down past the old Stone wall of the mill to the edge of the grass where out in front of me at the side of the river was a Great Blue Heron. I photographed the great blue heron at that point and then I walked back and crossed over to the main portion of the park and slowly made my way down the side of the river, taking photographs of the heron. Normally great blue herons, here in the north of very skittish and will take off, even if you only look like you are approaching them. However, this great blue Heron has been around Oliver Mill, probably for many years and has gotten use to people, especially in the spring when the herring are running. Across from where the great blue heron was standing on a rock, there is a granite bench. I was able to walk solar there, observe and photograph this great blue Heron while it was preening and occasionally catching some food. Photography wise, my equipment was the macro lens on my Nikon D810, because of the thick clouds, I had to increase my ISO to 1000 and opened my f-stop to F/5.6 in order to get enough speed to keep from blur in the pictures. The photographs of me photographing the great blue Heron were taken by my son Aaron