These big birds will let you approach quite closely most of the time, as long as you're slow and quiet. I was actually able to get up to this one, and lay down on the sand at the edge of his little pool to get at eye level. EXIF show 3.2 meters. Click for 1280-wide
D7000, 70-300 ED VR at 80mm, 1/250 @ f:6.3 shutter-priority, ISO 400