While at the lake this weekend we saw a beautiful Great Blue Heron sunning along the bank of the lake.  He was pretty  willing to pose for a while but then he got tired and decided to fly away.   If you haven’t seen a Great Blue Heron then you’re missing out on a BIG bird.

Many years ago, I interned at Brukner Nature Center we had a Great Blue Heron with one eye that had to remain in captivity.  He was huge and was a great tool for nature education.

These shots were taken with the D300 using the 70-300 VR lens with VR set on active since I was in the boat and bouncing pretty much every direction believable.  I may not have needed VR though because my shutter speed was pretty fast.  I’ve been told that once you hit about 1/800 shutter speed or higher you don’t need VR and that it will actually just reduce frame rate.