Because I had seen a great egret hunting several days earlier, I decided I would like to see if I had a chance to record some images. As I scanned the area of the waterbody, the presence of boats out on the pond indicated I would probably not see the egret today. Feeling a little disappointed, but in photographing wild life forms I get a lot more misses than encounters anyway, I decided to lower my expectations a little and look for random songbirds.
As I rounded the corner, I could see through the defoliated brush, and up in the tree was perched a great egret. Thinking it would fly off the second it saw me as they usually do, I crouched down  low into the brush and fired off the shutter a few times. The egret stayed put. Slowly, I got a little closer, slid behind a tree and fired a few more. The Egret still remained.
I finally got myself situated directly under the tree. From there, I shot several more images. Then I sent my intention of gratitude to the egret and departed as the egret remained in the tree preening itself.
I walked along the dirt road for a better part of an hour communing with several kinglets, sparrows, and chickadees as they weaved in and out of the bushes.
On my way back to the parking lot, I saw the egret now out on the shallow water foraging. I decided to record a few images of foraging behavior. After a couple shots, I knew the egret was well out of reach of the lens I was using at the time so I decided to just watch, listen and learn instead. Then suddenly, the egret took flight. At first I thought the egret was flying off to the growth of cattails on the other side of the pond. As that thought entered my mind, the egret then curved to the right and adjusted it’s flight path more or less directly towards me, then landed back into an adjacent tree. Naturally, I seized the opportunity.

By this time, the variable lighting of the late afternoon began working some serious magic. Slowly, I again approached the egret, and the shooting session had taken on an entirety different dynamic.  This second shooting took on the look and feel of a studio shoot. It was evident that I had been invited to the great egret’s mobile studio for a session I’ll not soon forget.