Ardea alba (Great egret)

Ardea alba (common name: Great  Egret)
 
15 march 2005

On a sunny March morning I decided to go to a nature reserve with my dad. He also has a Nikon D70, but his telelens is the Sigma 50-500 HSM. I use the Nikon 80-400 VR; I'm not going to favor one lens over the other as they both have their strengths and weaknesses. We were lucky that day though as we saw a great egret standing in the pool near the watch tower. When the egret saw us climbing on the watch tower it flew away with a lot of noise. The bird landed in the reed on the other side on the pond so we only had a glimpse of it from time to time. We waited for a long time and nothing happened, but then it suddenly took off again and flew to the other side of the pond. The egret moved several times and even caught some fish, so we were able to take a lot of nice pictures.
Some last remarks...400mm is still too short, and shooting white birds in the sun is not easy!!!
 
Photos by Frank Panis
 
Shooting Data:

Camera: Nikon D70
Lens: AF VR Zoom-Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED
Sensitivity: ISO200
Shutter speed: 1/640sec to 1/1250s f/10
Flash:none
Support: hand held
Image: RAW, reconverted (October 2008) in Nikon CNX2.1.0