More Brazos Bend story...
There were three of us shooting that day. Raymund was shooting a Canon 10D with an Canon EF 70-200mm L (non-IS) and Mike was shooting an Canon AE-2 film body with a Sigma 70-200mm and Sigma 2x teleconverter combo. When we were on the observation tower, we saw many birds that were way out of reach for our gear, but there was one that caught my eye. Here is where he was sitting (I circled the bird in red)... just out of the reeds:
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We gazed on... taking turns with Mike's high powered binoculars (note to self: good thing to have for spotting). It's body looked a lot like a green heron, but it seemed too brown. My curiosity got the best of me and I was determined to get a photo to ask some experienced avian photographers for help with identification. I had a Canon 2x teleconverter in my bag and Mike's Sigma doesn't have a protruded front element like the Canon TC does, so I stacked the Sigma TC behind my TC and put them on Raymund's 10D body which has a 1.6x FOV crop because of the sensor size. Using the 70-200mm at the long end, that would be 200mm + 2x + 2x optically and then a 1.6x FOV crop on top of that... so basically a cropped 800mm focal length. Optically, it was total crap... complete loss of auto focus and the manual focus was unruly. The loss of light through all those stacked elements forced me to shoot at ISO 1600 to get a decent shutter speed. Crazy. Anyhoo, here's what he looked like:
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So, I sent this info to some experienced avian photographers and here's what I got back:
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That, my friend, is an American Bittern. It is one of two bittern species in North America. The other is called the Least Bittern and, if you can believe it, looks almost identical to the American with one very small exception...it is about 1/8th the size! And, as you can imagine, very difficult to see, much less photograph. Actually, both Bitterns are considered "good birds" by birders, so consider yourself fortunate to have seen one. They are more often heard than seen. And talk about a "weird" call...the American's Bittern is tough to beat in that category. It sounds like a very large "GULP". As in when someone who is very thirsty is taking a deep drink..."
Very cool. I'm really glad that I took the time to do some creative rigging and get the shot... too bad the image quality (at resolution) is way to bad to print.
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