Great Blue Heron and Great Orange Sunset

tripod, Fujifilm XT-20, Fujinon 18-135mm lens at 135mm, f/22, 1/4sec @ ISO 200

tripod, Fujifilm XT-20, Nikon 300mm w/1.4X (35mm = 630mm), f/8, 1/80sec @ ISO 400

Much of this past spring, and most of this summer, about twenty minutes before sunset, a solid wall of clouds have appeared in the distance and right along the horizon most days.
You just have to go out anyway, but this day surely looked clear less than an hour before sunset, so I was hopeful for a few shots of the red ball 'o sun touching the horizon.
My hopes were mostly dashed.
The sun gave its all though, sending some bright orange rays through the sudden clouds as if he were determined to not be blocked.
As I took a few photos of the orangey sky with this derelict pier/boat cover in the foreground, a great blue hereon flew up and landed on the boat cover.
He posed there for a while.
Long enough for me to go to my camera bag on the picnic table near me and get out and change my lens to my old Nikon 300mm f/5.6 lens with the Nikon TC-14 extender and a Nikon AI to Fujifilm X lens adapter. This gives me a 450mm telephoto on my crop frame sensor, and the 35mm equivalent of a 630mm lens.
Sometimes I feel I should wag that semi-heavy beast around with me and on this day, followed my gut. Sometimes I have carried it around without taking it out, but it paid off on this particular evening.
That lens allowed me to get a couple of pretty neat shots of the heron up there against that dramatic orange backdrop.