Every now and then when reviewing the afternoons photographs (it's just a hobby so it's usually afternoons), it dawns on me how damned lucky we are to have the amazing technology at our fingertips that a few years ago (or at least way back when I got started) would have seemed truly like magic. Yesterday on a sunset (past) stroll trying to get a few shots of our unusually large bald eagle population here in eastern Virginia, I took some photos of this blue heron without thinking too much about it at the time. Only when I was discarding the rejects did I stop to really notice how I had been able to capture these photos.

In this particular case (well past sunset on a fairly windy day) the specs are:

Nikon D7000 Sigma 150-500mm OS
ISO 1600
F9
1/25th second
500mm (hand held!)
[some WB adjustment and a bit of PS unsharpen]

It's crazy, just crazy that under these conditions it only takes 3 shoots (in this case) to get something like this!