It’s not everyday that you walk up to your favorite Osprey photography location and find a White Morph Reddish Egret. Today was one of those days. In fact, I got to spend the entire morning with this amazing bird. Watch the video below.
My what big eyes you have there little birdy! These head on shots are always a little weird looking.
There that’s much better. This might look like a plain white bird but this is a Reddish Egret in a white color morph, something you don’t see too often.
This is like the super ultra rare bird and just like other Reddish Egrets, this beautiful feather covered creature has a pretty unique way of hunting. Watch the video above to see for yourself.
The dance of the Reddish Egret never gets old and I love sharing this behavior with people. Some people look at this bird and say, ” Wow! This is most graceful bird on the planet.” Others, take one look at this bird and say, “This bird looks like a drunken master.” I would have to say it is a combination of the two. This bird has graceful mastered the art of catching fish.
One of the great things about spending time with a reddish egret is the fact that you are pretty much guaranteed some great photography opportunities which almost always lead to some really unique shots. This White Morph was hunting so close to me that I decided to use my Sony A9 and the 100-400 grand master lens. I needed the speed and versatility of my A9 100-400 combo and it didn’t let me down. The real challenging part with this combo is trying to choose which images to keep. 20 frames per second and the yields a lot of great results.
Uh-oh. It looks like our white morph has some company. That darker colored bird flying in quick from the background is another Reddish egret and from the looks of things, I don’t think this other reddish egret is too happy to see the rare white morph.
Good job other reddish egret. It looks like you scared away the rarest bird in the area. I guess that means you are the subject now. Let’s see what you’ve got.
It looks like this bird is fired up and ready for action. Oh yeah, this bird definitely means business.
Another reddish egret has arrived on the scene and check out that drop of water on its back. The magic of photography. Being able to pause time and sit back and take it all in. And just like that those water droplets break apart and fall back into the drink but let’s back up and see how those water droplets got there.
Ah, A nice friendly head dunk. I love how you can actually see each and every water droplet frozen in time and the way everything falls back into place as the Reddish Egret pulls its head from the water. Amazing stuff and it looks like this bird scored a nice tasty fish. No time to wait around. There are more fish to be caught.
As graceful as ever, the white morph proceeds to patrol the shallows in search of food and not too far behind it we have the local bully throwing its wings into the air in hopes of scaring up some fish and it isn’t long until the two clash and once again, the darker colored bird is the obvious aggressor here.
For some reason, the other reddish egrets in this area just don’t like the white morph.
The white morph is hungry so it continues its search for food by throwing its wings up and moving its head into the exact position it needs in order to successfully capture a fish .
Once again it gets chased away but this time the smaller darker colored reddish egret is the aggressor. This white morph just can’t seem the catch a break and it appears to be A little agitated by all the aggression so it moves to the other side of the tide pool where it has plenty of wide open space to run, dance and hunt for fish. I won’t complain because the lighting is much better over here anyways!
And it looks like this bird’s crazy acrobatic antics have scored it a small clawless blue crab. This little crab’s life now hangs precariously in the balance of this bird’s beak as the bird shakes the remaining water droplets from the crab’s shell.
This is the moment 20 frames per second really pays off. Look at this shot. This crab is just resting on the bird’s lower beak.
The 20 frames per second was important here because this shot existed in time for just a fraction of a second. The next two frames and we find the bird rejecting its crab and dropping it back into the water. I guess this white morph doesn’t like to eat blue crabs. Me neither.
All of this commotion has drawn the attention of the local bully who comes running into the area at full speed and I decided to put the A9 to this test here and shoot a long burst which resulted in more of my life being consumed by looking through a series of amazing shots. This is a good problem to have but this is also why I don’t always just hold shutter button down with this camera.
Look at this shot. That moment in time when water becomes elastic as it stretches over this bird’s head and individual water drops continue to move forward because of the bird’s forward moving kinetic energy.
We are fully playing with time here and it is an amazing sight to behold.This is one of the reasons I bought this camera. Its ability to capture this many frames and every single one of them is in focus. I shot a burst of 29 shots or the equivalent of somewhere around 1.5 seconds of time. Give or take a millisecond or two.
Another reason I love the Sony a9 is its ability to track fast moving subjects while shooting video. Shooting in slow motion makes things even better because the exaggeration of my movement isn’t as noticeable. We also get the opportunity to actually see just how precise this bird’s apparent erratic behavior is.
Our white morph finally gets the hint and finds some much needed solitude among the rocks giving me this awesome in flight shot where we can see all of the bird’s feathers. The dark contrasting rocks in the background also make a nice touch and help make the bird’s face more visible.
It isn’t long until hunger takes over and pushes the white morph into snatching what looks like a goby from its once safe haven of rocks. Let’s leave the white morph alone and let it enjoy its meal. Its had enough pressure from the other Reddish Egrets in the area and I think I see something happening on the other side of the tide pool. Let’s go check it out.
Ahh the commotion on the other side of the tide pool was a group of snowy egrets and these birds are notorious for being a little bossy and it looks like this one is living up to that notoriety by attacking and scaring all of the other snowy egrets out of the area.
Look at this little bird. It has managed to perch on a high rock where it flexes its bird muscle and it just looks hilarious! I think this bird wins the ridiculous bird pose of the year with its bow legged posture, its white crest pushed it is max and its obvious shoulder flex letting every other Snowy Egret know whose boss.
But this bird’s superiority complex was quickly put to rest by none other than our White Morph who proudly displays its wider wingspan and shoos the Snowy Egret off its high horse and immediately grabs a fish that must have been trying to hide among all these birds. Not a great idea for the fish.
The white morph parades around showing the snowy egret and now a white ibis its prized catch as if to say, “Hey, where are you two going? I just wanted to show you this big fish I just caught.” In the last shot of this sequence we get a nice eye for an eye shot as the fish prepares to take one last ride down the reddish egret’s throat.
The White morph reddish egret continued to dance in the shallows and give me plenty of great opportunity to capture strange and unique shots. It even stopped for a moment and posed between two small children playing in the water.
Interesting way to frame a bird in an image but there was one shot in particular that I was looking for. I really wanted a shot of the White Morph Reddish Egret running full speed towards a small school of fish but that small school of fish had to be in the air right in front of the white morph. An image like this would tell a great story and I didn’t think I was asking for too much. Ask and you shall receive!
A few minutes later and this exact opportunity played out right in front of my eyes and because I was shooting the Sony a9 at 20 frames per second, I was able to get not one but several of these awesome action shots! What a cool experience in the hot Florida sun.
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