Heron pics, pls confirm ID (SBWR 190904)

[2100]

Grey? Got 2 of them I think, just flew 1 short round and landed again.

http://www.pbase.com/sil83/heron

[ccplim]

Nice series especially those in flight. It appears to be a grey heron to me.

[skfoo]

They are grey herons.

Cheers!

[Garion]

Good action sequence captured there! My fav shot is of this guy landing on the tree: http://www.pbase.com/sil83/image/34039245 In response to your question, yes, these are Grey Herons (Ardea cinerea).

[mpenza]

cool!!! great pics

[2100]

Thanks for the nice comments guys.......well actually i was shooting some little egrets in static poses on my tripod when suddenly i glanced that something massive flew past above me. Just had enough time to re-aim and whack.

In case you are wondering, the whole series is seriously underexposed by at least 1 stop. Had to pull the slider to at least value 200 with levels, then pull up the shadows and mids with curves. The colours, midtones don't look too natural and just passable....

This is what i think I learnt (or what will work for me) :
Never shoot in spot or centre-weighted. You will never have the time or mood to change the metering coz you will be ecstatic that such a glorious biggie just flew past you and your main objectives are just to aim, AF and press shutter, not to check shutter speed/ISO/metering/WB etc..... You will never be able to meter correctly/consistently to track a raptor in flight at super tele ranges. Well, for me i think i have learnt some cool bits about Nikon's 3D Colour Matrix, i think i will trust it more and use EC....which i will still shoot underexposed but results won't be that bad/unpredictable.

Always be alert and shoot with both eyes open most of the time. Use the non-VF eye's peripheral vision. If i had mine closed, i'd have gotten a few less frames of it landing (which i think are the prettiest).

[2100]

PS. Just noticed there is a stork inside. Anybody can ID pls?

http://www.pbase.com/sil83/image/34039258