Catch of the day

This photo was taken at Butterfly Beach, Santa Barbara, California. It was low tide that day and I went down to the beach to see if I could get some pictures of the local wildlife. Toward the end of my session I came across this Snowy Egret. It was quite the fearless bird. I was squatting on a rock, in the water while the Egret did it’s thing and hunted for food. It was amazing to watch it sift it’s feet in the watery sand to find its prey. I sat there for for a long time, taking picture after picture as the egret caught fish after fish. It kept moving closer and closer to me and at one point was nearly an arms length away. Around that same time is when this photo was taken. Roughly 8-10 feet in front of me, it stood still staring at me as if to pose for a shot and say “look what I got!”. I’m glad I was able to capture the moment and display this animals hard work in catching its daily meals.