Great Blue Heron Building a Nest

[larryj]

Nest building by Great Blue Heron. I this series of images the male is delivering materials for building the nest. The first image shows him flying into the nest with a small twig, the second image shows him delivering a larger twig a few minutes later and the third image shows the female heron arranging the twig in the nest as the male watches.

 

[AlanLichty]

They use some pretty hefty sticks for their nesting materials. Neat sequence.

 

[larryj]

They use some pretty hefty sticks for their nesting materials. Neat sequence.

Thanks Alan, Those are pretty large and hefty birds and the 4 nests I was shooting that year were all this size or bigger! Each nest had from 3 to 5 chicks and need the heft!

 

[Kurt Harrigan]

Nice and sharp with these, Larry. What focal length were you using?

 

[JimFox]

That's some great timing! Good job on this sequence Larry.

 

[larryj]

Nice and sharp with these, Larry. What focal length were you using?

Hi Kurt, thanks for the comments on these images, appreciated!
I was using a camera with a 1.5X crop factor mounted with a Sigma 150-600mm Sports lens shooting at 600 mm (900 mm effective).

 

[larryj]

That's some great timing! Good job on this sequence Larry.

Thanks Jim, I had a great time that spring shooting between 4 nests on a small island just off shore from the lake front. There were shooting spots on 3 different sides of the island and kept me running back and forth to shoot from different locations! I was also distracted on occasion by the numerous other birds that frequent this lake.