The Heron & the Crappie

I was going through my heron pictures from the dam and found a series that I was kind of excited about. I didn’t think I had too many decent shots so I really hadn’t opened all of the pictures. I see some great birds eating fish pictures here, but I have always been a little curious that I see them with fish that I don’t recognize. I like to fish, and I thought I had caught just about everything in these lakes. I was excited to see that this bird has a “crappie”. That’s what we call it here, and we pronounce it with a soft “a”…farther north it gets pronounces with a hard “a”, and it has various other names as well.

These are not the best technically, but I’m just happy to see the fish. Cropped from D200 w/ 300 2.8 AF + 1.4TC. ISO 500 because it was very overcast

Flyin' around looking for some food:


You have to look close to see the fish still in the water. The extra fps with the D2H would have been handy here…and I had one with me but I was just checking out the D200.


I had a few shots like there where it was obvious this is a crappie:

 

Thanks Gale!

Nah, you just let the camera focus and hold the little button down!

Ha! Thanks Frits, but I can't show that man how anything is done. If I had just been a little closer...had a few for fps...and had a little bet better light, well you know how that goes! I can't wait to see his. He took pictures while I was busy talking to people.

Thanks Chris was more luck than anything. I have a card full of really bad shots to prove it.

Thank you, Dave.

 

Yes, it was a good day for the bird and not so good for the fish...

I wish I could see fish in the water like that!

Thank you Frank. I guess I was pretty critical of myself because I wasn't happy with the sharpness, but I got over it when I considered that: [1] I was shooting the D200 because I needed some cropping room over the D2H, so this is a significant crop [2] I was using a TC (thank you for selling it, sir) [3] ISO was 500. So I cropped a ISO 500 shot with a TC. I’ll take it!!!!

 

Thanks Andy!

Didn’t you post once that you know the Milwee’s? You should catch a ride with them to a football game this season. We have 6 home games and one week I may have some extra seats in the press box. I’m near the RTJ course in Muscle Shoals if you ever get over this way.

 

Thanks Larry! Remind her that their is a fair amount of luck at play here.

Thank you, sir.

I'm there every game (although this year I am planning to go to Green Bay for a game, and since we play at night that might be a problem). The pregame atmosphere is great and very family friendly, and the two live lions are cool, too. Like I said, we have six home games but I didn’t mention that one is a Thursday night TV game. I already have the schedule on my calendar:biggrin: Spring game is next weekend.