Magnolia Plantation and Gardens

[Hatchdog]

“ This begs the question "why did the gator cross the road?"

Obviously to get to the park bench!

That insect does indeed look angry.

[clovishound]

As long as it's not to get to the photographer on the other side, I'm good.

I don't really worry much about the gators at the swamp. They are pretty comfortable around people, which is a bad thing. They don't, however, seem to be interested in us as food, which is a good thing. There certainly are a lot of them in a fairly small area.

Just for a little background, these are the "slave cabins" on the other side of the swamp garden.

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Here are some of the early crop of GBHs waiting for mom or dad to show up with some breakfast. One of the photographers said that earlier this week she got a shot of them feeding the little ones in this nest a baby gator. That would have made a great image.

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Here's a little blue heron quietly watching for fish. He was more intent on his meal than the idiot with the camera less than a dozen feet away. While most of the inhabitants of the swamp won't let you get as close as I would like, they are used to people, and some individuals are rather tolerant of me getting close. Most do require you to learn the smooth and stealthy approach. One quick movement and most are gone. One advantage of my mirrorless camera is the ability to put it in "silent mode". No mechanical shutter in this mode, and it mutes the focus lock beep so that shooting is virtually noise free.

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And another insect shot. I believe this is a signal fly. Keep in mind I am not an entomologist, and I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

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[clovishound]

More gators today.

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[CT_Shooter]

Here's a little blue heron quietly watching for fish. He was more intent on his meal than the idiot with the camera less than a dozen feet away. While most of the inhabitants of the swamp won't let you get as close as I would like, they are used to people, and some individuals are rather tolerant of me getting close.

That's actually a Green Heron. I had the privilege of having one visit my backyard pond and got quite a few photos. None as good as yours, though.

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[clovishound]

I stand corrected. I had shot a bunch of little blue herons in recent trips, so I ended up lumping them together, even though they are not that similar. Thanks for pointing that out.

BTW, I like your picture. I would imagine that small pond would attract a number of birds, and makes a great backdrop. Everybody, myself included, wants to bring out the long lenses when photographing birds, but sometimes having enough of the background in the scene gives nice context, and sometimes, mood to a picture. I doubt this image would have the nice peaceful mood if it had been shot with something like a 600mm lens, which would have excluded and blurred out most of the background.