Breakfast.

It was a slow morning here at Red River, which gave me the chance to get out on the water to take some pictures before the weather turned a little stormy.  Although Great Blue Herons are plentiful in Virginia, even near DC (my alter ego is working on one project that boasts a 41-nest rookery), they're a pretty rare sight up here.  We're treated to it only a few times each summer, so I was pretty excited when I saw one fly across the pond.

I hopped in a canoe and stayed as far away from him as I could while getting close enough for my telephoto to see him.  He was crouched in the sheep laurel, unmoving, for at least five minutes.  Then he struck and came up with this:

Yum- trout for breakfast.  From where I sat, it looked like a not-too-shabby 8 inches or so.  He seemed pretty happy with it, too.

Unfortunately, I had my camera on automatic for the first several minutes I was watching him, so while the background foliage came out beautifully, he was terribly washed out.  I had to play with the light levels in Photoshop to bring his color out a little better.

I smartened up after he took off from the shallows and landed on the downed spruce by the Island.  With my camera on one of its manual settings, the heron looked a lot better, so I decided to bother him a while longer.

After about 20 minutes, he'd had enough of the paparazzi treatment, and he took off for the cove on the other side of the rock pile. On his way out, he was kind enough to treat me to this beautiful view.

I've also posted a few more on our Flickr photostream. It was a good morning in the Deboullie Township.