Green Heron

I took yesterday off after having finished two papers in a week, papers I should have worked harder on during the semester, but you know how that goes. Went to town lake to see if I could get any shots of local wildlife. The birds there let people come closer to them than birds in other places. I think that there are so many people who frequent town lake (even on a mid-day Friday) that the wildlife has taken to mostly ignoring them. The green heron above was fishing just feet from the trail. When I knelt down to take a picture, he flew to a nearby branch, then later took off for some other fishing spot. The second shot would be more impressive if more evenly exposed, but the light filtered through the branches overhead made it difficult. A faster shutter speed would have been nice, too. I was within ten feet of a cardinal's nest at one point, and what I think was an immature yellow-crowned night heron also came within several feet of me while fishing.