Great Blue Heron

It is unfortunate how little interest that many here at APUG have in portraits of animals and in particular birds; but at the same time they put so much stock in portraits of people. This portrait of a Great Blue Heron was taken with a Leica f5.6 800mm Modular Apo Telyt lens and a Leica 1.4X Apo Extender. A stalk of out-of-focus of purple flowers, above and behind the beak, repeats the basic color of the slightly S shaped curve of the neck of the bird. The sunlight shows the transluscence of the bill of the Great Blue Heron. Special thanks to Leica Camera USA for the loan of the f5.6 800mm Modular Apo Telyt lens. Rich

Wonderful image, I'm glad you posted this, I was just looking at a book on bird photography at lunch time, and thinking about how difficult it must be to make sure shots. Great shot, thanks for sharing.

Absolutely gorgeous shot!

I think I am most taken by the color. I guess that is why they call it a "Great Blue Heron", because it is!!.

Hi Robert and 25asa,

Thanks very much for the very kind comments. As can be seen, the Heron is in breeding plummage and was photographed as the bird was slowly walking through the reeds and other grasses and plants. The Leica f5.6 Modular 800mm Apo Telyt and the Leica 1.4X Apo Extender (16X) made it possible to take this image. Again, special thanks to Leica Camera USA for the loan of the f2.8 400mm and the f5.6 800mm Modular Apo Telyt lenses for a month. Rich