Black Egret within city limits

I popped into a local bird sanctuary (Austin Roberts Bird Sanctuary) yesterday morning, just to see whether there was anything new to see. The sanctuary itself, is a city block in size and used to be in suburbia. However, with businesses moving from downtown Pretoria into the suburbs, the sanctuary is now in a mini business hub. It is pleasing to see that the birds are remaining in the sanctuary, in spite of the developments.

I found a Black Egret in open view from the hide, preening itself:



I took many shots, but unfortunately, in the excitement of finding this bird, forgot to change the camera from ISO 1600, that I'd been using on another bird in the shade. I was able to save some images with a bit of aggressive post-processing:



After preening for about half an hour, it jumped into the water and started wading around. It was here that I realised that I was working at too high an ISO.




One of the amazing things about a Black Egret is that it fans its wings to form an umbrella while hunting. It then catches fish which move into the shade of this 'tent':







All in all, a very rewarding session, not only for finding the bird, but also seeing it go through its 'tenting' routine.