I'm working on details for a photo trip out to Cedar Creek Park this weekend with some friends, which had me looking through some other photos from previous trips to this park.

I have another shot of this great blue heron (Ardea herodias), but this wider crop works nicely too.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di LD Macro1:2 at 300mm, 1/390 sec at f/5.7. ISO 320. No post production. Cedar Creek Park, Westmoreland County, PA.

Why This Photo: I stumbled on this guy while wandering through the park on a very cold December 30th last year. I instantly switched to my Tamron 70-300 telephoto (my longest lens at the time) and worked on slowly and quietly moving into good position - take photos all along the way.

What Works: For a handheld shot at 300mm, the focus is pretty sharp - especially on the face of the bird. The positioning of the bird's foot gives a bit of a sense of motion as the bird was wading along the stream.

What Doesn't Work: Despite being nicely blurred, the background is still fairly confusing with brown (dirt and leaves) and white (snow) and can be somewhat distracting. Also the crop cutting out the other foot is somewhat unsettling (the same can be argued for the rest of the bird's body, but doesn't seem as bad).

It is kind of unfortunate that I managed this shot in December when the heron did not have its namesake nice blue color, but I wasn't about the pass up the opportunity because of something like that. We saw plenty of blue herons (and even a couple very beautiful green herons) this summer while kayaking, but I didn't have the SLR with me and the SeaLife DC1200 really isn't that functional for shots like this.

Let's hope I can come home with some more new good shots from one of my favorite parks (and hopefully the friends that go with me do too!).

- Bill