Hunting Reef Herons is an opportunistic exercise and I have written about photographing them previously. It is always exciting to come across one and this occasion was no exception. On a recent trip to Northland I was heading to the estuary at Waitangi in search of NZ Dotterels and Kingfishers which I have photographed there before. As I turned to park a shape on the beach caught my my eye and plans immediately changed.

Reef Herons are normally birds of rocky shorelines and have always been quite wary in my experience. This particular bird was actively hunting small fish in the wavelets along the sandy beach and seemed to pay little attention to the passing walkers and dogs. I cautiously approached the water edge keeping a low profile and it kept moving toward me.

It was a ideal situation to use the tilting LCD and Live View to achieve a nice low angle to throw the background out of focus and isolate the heron. Crouching and resting the camera on my boot kept it out of the sand and achieved a lower angle (and less neck pain) than I could have achieved prostrate in the sand.

These are just a few of a whole series of images I have from this session and I have significantly improved my archive of Reef Heron images. Next challenge – Reef Heron in flight!

Photos with Nikon D850 and 500mm f4 PF