Buckeye 6.4.10

Had a lovely day in Buckeye today. Spent about 3 hours walking the irrigation streams and saw a lot of birdlife. I used some of Arthur Morris' field techniques for getting close and was very pleased with the results.
This first picture was taken not long after first light - the ducks hadn't noticed me as they came in to land and I was able to frame this shot:

I spent about 30 minutes with this Great Egret - Arthur Morris' techniques allowed me to creep from about 400ft up to about 30ft away from him without him showing any signs of alarm or concern. It is a shame that the background is as cluttered, but c'est la vie and as I discussed in my previous post today - satisfaction doesn't always come from the perfect picture.

What was interesting about these shots was that the 30 minute time span caused some very noticeable changes in the blue of the sky. For this second shot I also used a little fill flash to try and bring out some of the detail. I am not sure whether I like the results yet, but will definately adjust the flash output next time.