Some of you no doubt saw my Facebook and Instagram post of a Great Egret (
Ardea alba) at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge from last week. It's a phone picture, which is sort of unusual because as good as those phone cameras are these days, it's not often I can catch pictures of birds because I'm just never close enough, and I don't have enough zoom.
That wasn't the case on Saturday. We were following the auto-tour road at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge near Willows, and as we crept along, I saw this Great Egret alongside the road ahead and fully expected that it would be spooked by our passing and fly away. It didn't. I crept up to within three feet of the driver's side window, and still the bird stood there not caring whether I was there or not. I started fumbling for my camera fully expecting it to fly away, and still it didn't. I started snapping.
The detail is pretty amazing when you are only three or four feet away, and have a 60x zoom at your disposal. It's almost microscopic...for once I could look into the eye of an avian dinosaur and sense the creature within. Well maybe, anyway. I feel more affinity for mammals as a rule. These birds are pretty alien for the most part.
I took a bunch of pictures and the bird finally moved. It walked right around the car so Mrs. Geotripper could have her turn too! This was a defiant creature if I've ever seen one...
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