Picture of the week

Heron silhouette

A great blue heron silhouetted at sunset along the American River Parkway with the Fair Oaks bridge in the background.

The capture of this photograph was very much a happen-stance situation.  While departing after some bird and wildlife photography along the banks of the American River after sunset, this heron flew in and landed on a nearby rock.  I was able to creep up closer along the edge of the bank through some brush to get a better angle with the Fair Oaks bridge in the background.  Given no tripod and shooting with my 100-400mm lens, I had to rest the camera/lens setup on the vegetation and rely on a relatively high ISO of 3200 to maintain enough sharpness.