Developing good observational skills is essential for wildlife photography and general enjoyment of the back country.    Observing wildlife requires patience, the ability to recognize shapes and colors, and sometimes, a great deal of luck.   For example, when I first observed the bird above at a distance, it was in shadows and I was fairly far away, and the silhouette of the bird appeared to be that of a common grackle, a plain old bird, I wasn’t interested.

Then I realized that the beak was much longer than a grackle, and the overall shape of the shoulders was larger than a back yard bird.

I attached a longer lens to my camera and saw that the bird was actually a beautiful green heron.   I’ve seen green herons along the Potomac River and in the Everglades, but not previously in the Adirondacks.   I was thrilled to add this “catch” to my collection.   As I watched, I put a teleconverter on my lens for a closer look, and while I was watching the green heron stretched its neck — a sign of alert — and let out a piercing yell.

That photograph made my day!   The heron swiftly took off after that….

Here’s an example of a blue jay hiding in the grasses alongside the road:

And I waited long enough to catch him perched on a tree branch:

This frog just wouldn’t leap from behind the tall grasses of the marsh:

But these ring-necked ducks were playing along the shores of Tupper Lake without any hiding in the reeds…

This yellow warbler was hard to miss, given that bright belly:

But I almost overlooked this little merganser duckling beating a hasty retreat on Stony Creek: