05/22/2026
For this Feather Friday, I bring you this beachside heron along with a short story behind the moment.
I made it out to the beach shortly after 5 a.m. for blue hour at the Navarre Fishing Pier. At first, I had no intention of focusing on birds until after sunrise when they usually become more active and the light fits my camera gear a little better.
Instead, I found myself simply sitting there admiring the pastel colors spreading across the sky while the waves rolled in at my feet. That’s when I noticed this heron leaving the pier as the fishermen started showing up for the morning. He flew roughly 100 yards down the beach and landed maybe 30 feet away from me.
I stayed completely still and gave him a few minutes to settle in because I hoped he might move closer to the edge of the water where the waves and sunrise colors would line up behind him. I decided to leave my 70-200 on because I didn’t want a tight close-up. The conditions were just too beautiful not to include the scene around him.
A few minutes later, he pretty much followed the script perfectly and started working the shoreline for breakfast. That’s when I began experimenting with my camera position, laying in the sand, sitting low, even holding the camera above my head, trying to capture different angles of the moment and tell the story of the scene.
More than anything, it was just peaceful. A nearly empty beach, soft sunrise colors, and the sound of the surf rolling in. Meanwhile, this guy managed to swallow what looked like a foot-long fish in one gulp while I sat there completely distracted by the moment itself.
Just like that, breakfast was over, and within a minute he was gone as quickly as he had arrived.