A crane, a hawk, a splashing deer, and me sans 400mm

What a day NOT to be carrying my 100-400mm! Long story short, my son stayed overnight so I had to drive him to school. On the way we spotted a crane sitting in a pond under a tree. So, after I dropped him off I figured I could get close enough with my 18-200mm to get a good shot.

This is the original pond I was trying to get the picture in, but as soon as I put my foot over the fence the bird took off:



So, I had to try this shot with the 200mm at over twice the distance...heavily cropped.



While waiting for it to do something more interesting, and get in a more reflective pool, I took a few close-ups of the grass...when I looked up it was gone. I decided to walk around the tree and see if it was over there. And, as I walked around I found this hawk (what at first I thought was an owl) on this protruding branch of another tree.....AND the crane in the background.





It too flew away as I tried to push closer. So, I decided to leave. As I was walking back to my car, a deer darted past and over the bank. I stepped back over the bank to see what I could get of that and got this! Heavily cropped. All of this in San Antonio, just east of the airport, in what is basically a drainage ditch!