Peggy Badten got within 20 feet when photographing this great blue heron, hunting for fish in Moccasin Creek, just below the outfall of the Aberdeen (S.D.) Wastewater Treatment Plant.

“We get many types of wildlife around the treatment plant,” says Badten, pretreatment coordinator and chemist at the plant, in northeastern South Dakota. The heron, part of a nesting pair, stopped by last April and “was perfectly content to have his picture taken,” Badten recalls. “He was too busy fishing to notice me.”

The bald eagle appeared on a very cold morning in late February. “I was checking the plant outfall when I looked south along the creek, and there it was,” Badten reports. “Eagles are not rare around here but I’d never seen one this close up. Ever since the eagle showed up I have not been without my camera when I go out to check the outfall.”