Day 56 - Back to the forest to see a heron

I missed the heron by 2 seconds!  An elderly couple pointed me in its direction guessing that I was out there shooting birds.  But as I reached the spot, I saw it take off!  Well, I have to go back again.  But I got some other really nice shots of different things - pretty wildflowers, snails, another woodpecker, etc.  I was using my zoom lens for this shoot because I didn't want to lug my tripod into the marshes and then have to clean it up afterwards.

I had been tracking a duck down the edge of the river for quite some time, when it suddenly dived and disappeared.  It was gone for ages and I had almost given up hope of seeing it again, but it suddenly resurfaced and I realized that it had something in its beak.  I was completely obstructed by a bank of tall reeds (you will notice the blurred foreground), but I quickly managed to get into position without causing a lot of movement in the banks of reeds to get some quick shots of the duck.

This mallard and its mate were in the darkest little puddle deep inside the forest.  They were just feeding and preening, and preening and feeding.  The light in the pictures is from my ISO being bumped up to 800.  The following shot took a lot of patience and waiting around, but even so I had this twig right down the centre obstructing a clear view - I could do nothing about it since this position afforded the exact shot I wanted.

I was being watched as well! ;=)