The brutal heat we’ve had in this area relented a little and I spent some time concentrating on getting bird images today.  I watched this young male Wood Duck swim over and hop up on the log to take a close look at the Painted Turtle that was resting in the sun.

The Great Egret below was searching for a meal and its patience in keeping still allowed a nice shot.

Green Herons have been plentiful in this area for several weeks. The one below was also patiently in search of its next meal and was able to utilize its long stretchable neck to pluck food from the water while standing on its perch.

A nice surprise for me was photographing a hummingbird ‘in the wild’ for the first time.  My hummingbird shots are always a product of having a feeder nearby to draw them in but today this hummer just happened to land in a tree a short distance away to do some feather cleaning and I was able to take a number of photos.