A great blue heron, close, on a Lowcountry pond.

The neck is folded down into an S and the bill has dropped along its own breast — but the eye has come up and is directly on the camera, yellow with a hard black pupil, under the black crown stripe. The long grey plumes off the throat and breast hang loose and are the softest thing in the frame. The wing feathers below are blue-grey and laid flat in rows. Behind it the water has gone to soft green.

A portrait rather than a wildlife record. Vertical, and it holds a small wall well.