Answers To Questions

Reds,  Angela 2932 and Nicki.... Thank You! and  I am shooting with a Canon 70-300 lens.   I think I probably would need something as long as 500mm to be serious about wild life shooting.  I didn't even go look at BIG lenses for fear I would want one :)

This is camera crop for the last image I posted.... #125...you can see I had to crop quiet a bit.  Some of the time the birds are even farther away than this.  They came much closer to me last time I was shooting them.

 I am a patient person but these birds were displaying extraordinary behavior.  I knew where they would nest, so when I would approach the area they would begin to chatter and hop about from cat tail to cat tail and watch me.  I assumed they were trying to lead me away from their nests.  I could see a few nests that appeared to be empty but couldn't see any nests that had anything in them...... at first.   When I got back to my computer and opened the pictures I could see they were catching bugs as they hopped about and chirpped.... sometimes having several bugs in their mouth at the same time.  I never saw them eat the bugs or do anything with them but I noticed at different times in my series of pictures they would go from having a mouth full of bugs to no bugs so I thought they were at some point just deciding to eat what they were holding :) They would at times go out of my sight down low in the cat tails growing thick along the edge of the river.   However on my 3rd time to observe and shoot them I discovered they were actually catching bugs to feed their babies!!  This nest is out in the water about 15-20 feet so I couldn't get a clear shot but you can see a baby.  Actually I think there are about 3 babies in this nest.  I can see them move if I watch through my 70-300 lens.