As we were walking along the boardwalk at the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center, hubs, who was ahead of me, looked back and said, “look behind you”.

As I turned around, I saw that an adult Great White Egret had landed on the railing, just a few feet behind me. I slowly raised my phone, set the focus and began to take pics, all the while moving closer. I was able to get within about 3 feet of him before he decided he’d had enough posing and flew away.

In a smart phone photography class I took, one of the tips I usually remember was: while you’re looking at what’s in front of you for nature or landscape photo possibilities, always stop every once in a while to look behind you. Hubs certainly proved that theory for this capture.

With every photo of this big beautiful guy, I had only one issue in post processing. All I needed to edit was to heal out a spot in the sky (that must have been a speck of dust on my lens), and to crop for best size for a WordPress feature photo. In the cropping, I was unable to get the Egret’s eye in the crosshairs. Once again, I was reminded to take some shots in landscape mode for the purpose of feature photos. I generally remember that. On this occasion, I was so excited to see this guy so close, my discipline went out the window.