The Heard Nature Science & Wildlife Sanctuary is located in the city of McKinney just east of I75 and south of HWY 121. With close to 290 acres of land and 6 plus miles of meticulous well-carved trails, this sanctuary was made possible by the generosity of Miss Bessie Heard.
I had the opportunity to share this photographic experience with my good friend Brian Anderson who impressed me with his knowledge of birds. For a day, I had my own tour guide who named the different kinds of birds, their behavior, and able to recognize them by their sounds.
I brought a Canon EOS 20D with a EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, a Lumix LX3 for macro shots, but mainly used my EOS 5D Mark II with an EF 400mm f/2.8L II USM. After 24 hours and a few painkillers, I’m still hurting from carrying around this 13lb monster. The 400mm is the ideal focal length for this type of photography and I’m happy with the images I was able to capture with it -I will for sure be making large prints from some of them. If I had to do it all over again I would carry the EF 400mm f/4L IS (4.5lb) or any of the EF 300mm (less than 3lb) plus a teleconverter.
