When I happened upon this pair of Great White Heron in the Florida Key, it was almost by accident, but that’s a story for another time. What I learned was to be persistent, as this was the last morning of a dry five-day trip.

When I submitted the series of 20 images to the Naturalist Magazine, Florida’s Audubon counterpart, they liked the images but the writing was not up to their expectations, as I was submitting it as a photo text/package. They wanted more description of the species, it’s habitat, behavior and more.

I ordered a book on Wading Birds, and learned about the Great White Heron, rewrote the article and resubmitted it. That they liked.

However, they had no budget for payment of the use of the images, so we arranged to also carry a small notice that a special series of five images would be available for purchase. That worked. I received over $1,000 in orders.

This same photo text package was also republished in Florida Wildlife Magazine a year later.