Green Heron

These pictures could be filed under fortuitous for multiple reasons. First of all I almost didn't seen this Green Heron. I was walking along one of the ponds at Mentor Graphics looking for opportunities. There wasn't much around me at the moment and I was looking up ahead to see if anything interesting was coming up. Then out of the corner of my eye I noticed a bit of orange color on the other side of the pond along the reeds. I thought maybe it was one of the Hooded Mergansers that hang out here sometimes. On the other had it could just be a log. It wasn't moving making my second guess more likely, but I thought I might as take a look through my camera's telephoto lens. What a surprise! I knew it was something new, but I wasn't sure what. My guess was it was some type of bittern. It wasn't until I viewed the images on my computer that I identified it as a Green Heron.
It really was quite a ways away, so I was paying as much attention to focusing as I could and took a lot of shots since I knew there was a lot of chance for error. While not perfect, for as far as it was from me, I was pretty happy with several of the pictures.
Then I opened one image and it had something in its bill. It was just a light colored blob, but I thought it was pretty cool. Then I opened the next shot. Jack-pot! There was a small fish in its bill. I didn't even know there were fish in these ponds.