I photographed this great egret in flight on 4/20/14 at the Audubon Society’s Smith Oaks Preserve in High Island, Texas. I’ve found over the years, that the best strategy in a rookery is to observe the group for several minutes before shooting. I try to identify the most active birds and understand their behavior patterns. Then I simply wait for them to make their next move. This male egret was a late-comer to the rookery this year. He was still building his nest. I waited until he left the nest for his next stick and caught him in mid-air. Shots like this require extremely fast focusing lenses and camera. This was taken with the Nikon D4 and 800mm f5.6 Nikkor with 1.25x teleconverter.
