Posts in Category: Texas
Texas Has Great Junk Birds!
Green Jay
On every trip to the Rio Grande Valley, I am reminded again just how great the junk birds are in Texas. A junk bird is, among birders, a bird so common as not to warrant a second glance. It is generally also a somewhat obnoxious bird…extra noisy, aggressive toward other species, and messy in its habits. House Sparrow and Starling qualify on all counts, plus they are introduced species which compete for habitat with our native species. Most jays make the list, just because…well, just because they are jays. The Green Jay, in south Texas, is such a common bird around yards and feeders, and so jay like in behavior, that it has to be considered a Valley junk bird…but it is so striking…so amazing looking…that people come from all over the country (and the world) to see it…and seek it out whenever they come back. It is a junk bird that comes close to redeeming the whole category…maybe even to nullifying it. 🙂
This specimen was at the appropriately named “Green Jay photo blind” at Bensten State Park World Birding Center in Mission TX. Sony HX400V @ about 985mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 2500 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Hard Working Tricolored Heron
Tricolored Heron and Black-necked Stilt
The light (for photography) was miserable all day yesterday. It rained off and on…only twice hard enough so we had to seek cover…but hard enough so we were continuously damp. Still it was my friend Paul’s first day in the Rio Grande Valley, and I had promised to find him Egrets and Herons to fill his “big bird” desires (there is clearly a story there, but that is for another time). It took all day to find big birds within reach of Paul’s measly little 400mm f2.8, but we did finally find a group of Great and Snow Egrets, Tricolored Herons, Black-necked Stilts, and a single of both Little Blue and Great Blue Herons, feeding at a sharp bend in the canal at the Civic Park next to the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands World Birding Center. Eventually the Little Blue found a shoal of small fish right up against the shore, and his avid feeding attracted a Tricolored, a Snowy, and a group of Stilts. The Tricolored was a particularly effective fisher. While we watched, the bird caught and ate between 20 and 30 fair sized fish. The Snowy had a few, and the Little Blue a few more, and even one of the Stilts successfully caught and ate one…though it looked very large in that thin bill…but the Tricolored was easily the champ.
Like I say, very poor light. Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/400th @ ISO 2000 @ f6.3. Paul probably did better with his 400mm f2.8. He certainly was working with lower ISOs, but this is not bad considering the conditions, and the reach of the Sony. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Heliconians: National Butterfly Center
Haliconians. Zebra and Julia
Longwings (Haliconians) are among my favorite Rio Grande Valley butterflies. They are, to me, the very definition of exotic. Graceful, slow fliers, they often nectar with wings fully spread so they are ideal photographic subjects, and there is nowhere better to photograph them than the National Butterfly Center in Mission TX. I always attempt to spend at least a morning at the NBC on every trip to the Rio Grande Valley. Here we have the Zebra, one of the first butterflies to great me at the NBC gardens proper, and Julia, which another visiting couple pointed me to later in the morning.
Sony HX400V at various focal lengths. Processed and cropped in Lightroom on my Windows tablet. Assembled in Phototastic.
Odd Couple
Colonial nesting brings several species that might otherwise only share general feeding grounds into very close proximity. The Rookery at High Island is mostly Snowy and Great Egret, and Spoonbills. Rookeries in Florida generally add the smaller Herons, Ibises, and Wood Storks to the mix. At any rate, shots like this are easy to get at any rookery worth the name. A Great Egret and a Roseate Spoonbill just hanging out together at Smith’s Oaks Rookery in Texas.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. -2/3rs EV exposure compensation. 1/800th @ ISO 200 @ f10. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Spoonbills in Love!
It is not hard to observe mating behavior at the Smith’s Oaks rookery on High Island Texas. Just stand at one of the overlooks in April for few moments and you are bound to see some mating action. This pair of Spoonbills had not started a nest yet but were clearly contemplating one. If they had gotten that far in their thinking. If they were thinking.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Again, I had the camera in my preprogrammed “flight” mode and did not have time switch back. 1/400th @ f8 @ ISO 200. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Assembled in Pixlr Express.
Egret Brings the Branch
Despite suffering my worst bout of Acid Reflux ever, the trip to Galveston Texas for Feather Fest, and then on to Arcata California for Godwit Days, was, photographically, one of the most productive 14 days of my life so far : ) I was able to capture behavior shots that I have always wanted and never gotten before…and more behavior shots that I just can’t seem to get enough of. Terns hovering in mid-air. Closeups of Spoonbills in full flight. Reddish Egret canopy feeding. Pelicans gliding by at point blank range. Egrets bringing in nest materials. And, of course, that is what we have here. The Great Egrets at Smith’s Oaks rookery in High Island Texas had chicks in the nest, but Egrets never really stop building a nest once they start, and the males were still bringing branches. This handsome fellow is just landing.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. I used my custom “flight” program (9 spot, center, continuous focus. Auto ISO.) f9 @ 1/640th @ ISO 200.
If you have never visited High Island in the spring, the rookery will make the trip worth your while, even if, as on this day, there is no “fall out” of trans-gulf migrants. On day when the the Warblers and Orioles are dripping off the trees, you might not be able to spare a glance for the rookery. : )
Purple Gallinule!
The Purple Gallinule is not particularly a hard bird to see. You just have to be in the right place in its limited range at the right time. It is just that I never seem to be there. I saw a male in Florida on my first birding trip there 11 years ago, and a female two trips back, but other than that…nada. So to say that I was excited to see one at the Smith’s Oaks rookery on High Island Texas is an understatement. I got some shots of it peaking and poking among the vegitation, but just before I left, it popped up on top for just a few seconds and I got off a few full body shots. I did not have time, even, to shift the camera out of flight mode, so the rapidly moving bird is not tack sharp. Not the best, but my best so far!
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. ISO 400 @ 1/250th @ f6.7. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Texas Paintbrush
My day on the Bolivar Peninsula was mostly dreary weather-wise, but the light was excellent for photographing detail, as in these Texas Paintbrush flowers that lined many of the roads at the tip of the peninsula. After I had passed about my dozenth stand of them, I managed to get the car off the road in a sheltered spot and take a few photos. They are beautiful flowers, intense enough for even a dull day.
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. Wide angle view at 24 mm equivalent . Close up at 75 mm with macro. The main challenge with the macro was, as is often the case, the wind. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Nest Building Egrets
As I mentioned yesterday, I had an amazing Sunday on the Bolivar Peninsula, starting with yesterday’s canopy feeding Reddish Egret, moving on through Skimmers, Gulls, and Terns at Rollover, and finishing up with a visit to the rookery at Smith’s Oaks on High Island. The rookery has recovered well from the almost total devastation of the hurricane. The smaller trees are growing in nicely to replace the giants that the birds used for nesting, and with a few impromptu platforms placed on the stumps of the larger trees, the birds have adapted. In many ways, from a photographer’s point of view, the rookery is a better place today than it was before the storm. The birds are considerably more visible than I remember from my last visit (but that was at least 10 years ago, so I do not count too much on the memory). At any rate, the rookery made a fitting last stop on what was already a pretty spectacular day of birding and photography.
There was a lot of nest building going on, even though most nests already had eggs in them and the birds were actively sitting. The males seem compelled to keep bringing branches and the nests are so ramshackle that they probably do need frequent repair. This pair was putting on a good show. I especially like the evident (if indecipherable) attitudes of the two birds.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. My custom flight program. ISO 200 @ 1/640th @ f10. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Reddish Egret Canopy Feeding
I saw my first Reddish Egret, and my first Reddish Egret canopy feeding, 11 years ago at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on my first visit to the Space Coast Birding Festival. I have attempted to catch that behavior 100s of times since…on each encounter with a cooperative Reddish Egret…but, for 11 years, the image has eluded me. I have come close…but never close enough. 🙂 Yesterday, at my very first stop at the very tip of the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas, barely 5 minutes off the ferry, all that changed. This Reddish Egret made up for all the others. It was close, and it was actively canopy feeding. My new Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom might be just a shade more capable then the super-zooms I have used in the past. I now have a very satisfying set of Reddish Egret canopy feeding in almost every pose imaginable!
This is the classic, one-wing canopy, pose that satisfies because of its inherent grace and the elegance of the lines. It looks like the bird might hold this pose for minutes as it studies the fish in the shadow it creates with its wing…but the fact is that this is just one position, generally held for only a fraction of a second in the feeding dance…which is why it is so hard to catch. It was full overcast, and slightly foggy at distance, but it was excellent light to bring out the full detail in the bird’s plumage.
Camera as above. Shutter preferred. 1/800th @ ISO 500 @ f6.7. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.