Birds in the Everglades.

Great Blue Heron. Great Blue Herons are big, tall, long legged and long necked birds. They stand about 4 feet tall and have a wingspan of about six feet. Great Blue Herons are the largest of the Heron species in North America. They are grey blue in color with white feathers around the head and neck and a long sharp pointed yellow beak.

Beautiful Blue Heron. This big beautiful bird can be seen all over the Florida Everglades as it quite often stands very still for long periods waiting for it's dinner to swim by. Great Blue Herons eat all kinds of things, in fact anything it can catch will do.

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Photographing The Birds.

Photography Tips. Photographing the big wading birds like the Great Blue Heron is a great experience, best done at sunrise or at sunset. Lots of swamp birds will rest up during the day and only feed in the morning and evenings. Wading birds like the Big Heron's are very easily spooked so a long zoom of about 300mm or longer.

I like to use Manual Mode with an aperture setting of f8/11/16 and a shutter speed of 1000sec.  Birds are easily spooked like I said so be ready to capture the moment if they fly off. Remember to boost your ISO up to 1600/3200 if you can't get enough shutter speed.

As you approach the bird get your camera up to your eye and the bird in focus, keep grabbing shots as you get closer and closer and be ready for the panic flight emergency take off when it sees your too close.