Posts in Category: Texas
White-tailed Kite
This bird was the Black-shouldered Kite when I started birding…but only in the US. Elsewhere it was the White-tailed Kite, and the AOU changed the name to reflect the more common usage. However you call it, it is one of the most elegant raptors, both in coloration and in action. Seeing one hovering, as this bird is, or hanging higher on the wind with its wings motionless (kiting) is a thing of wonder. I caught it at the National Butterfly Center on the US boarder south of Mission TX, hovering over the bare ground north of the gardens, looking for prey.
This shot demonstrates one of the things I really like about the Canon SX50HS. I was at the Butterfly Gardens, obviously, to photograph butterflies, and I had the camera set to full zoom to do so from a comfortable distance. 1200mm equivalent brings you right in on butterflies from under 6 feet! When I saw the kite hovering, it was the work of seconds to spin the control dial to Sports, get on the bird, and shoot off a sequence of rapid images. Twice. I got three keepers from the two sequences…and more that were close duplicates. I know of few other cameras that flexable. 🙂
Camera as stated. Sports mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. Cropped slightly for scale.
And a second shot.
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Our first full day in the Rio Grande Valley, after setting up the ZEISS booth at the Municipal Auditorium, my colleague and I did a quick run out to Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center. It was a deeply overcast day, but there were birds about. This Golden-fronted was just off the deck at the Visitor Center. Everything is more colorful in the Valley. Even the woodpeckers!
Canon SX50HS in Program with – 1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Head-on White-patched Skipper
I really enjoy the National Butterfly Center’s gardens! Really! Enjoy! In the fall of the year there is nowhere better to photograph and study free-flying butterflies. The location, within spitting distance of the Rio Grande River and the Mexican boarder, is ideal for tropical species that are seen nowhere else in the US, and you can easily find 50 species on an average day. And the carefully selected and well tended plantings mean there are many individuals of the most common species, and generally a few rare species. In fact every time I have visited, at least one rare butterfly was on the premises, and generally more than one. A Zebra Cross-streak was seen the day before I got there, and I posed a photo yesterday of the Great Purple Hairstreak…not as rare as the Zebra, but not a commonly seen bug.
This is a White-patched Skipper…one of the spread-winged Skippers. I don’t think it is particularly rare, but it is an attractive bug anyway. This is not a good ID shot, but I like it because to me it captures more of the character of the bug. 🙂
Canon SX50HS in Program with -1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. 1800mm equivalent field of view from about 5 feet. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Great Purple Hairstreak. Happy Sunday!
I was not scheduled to lead a field trip yesterday, and it was really my only chance to get to the National Butterfly Center and it’s butterfly gardens on this trip. The trade show at Rio Grande Birding Festival does not open until noon, so I had a few hours in the morning…three if I left the hotel at 7am to be at the NBC by the time it opens at 8am, and left there in time to be back to open the ZEISS booth. Seemed like a reasonable thing to do. 🙂
I had heard a rumor that there had been a rare butterfly sighting on Friday, and a sign in the Visitor Center confirmed a 3rd US record sighting of the Zebra Cross-wing in the gardens. I did not see the Zebra, and not for want of looking (as far as I know no one saw it on Saturday) but I did see many other beautiful bugs. This is the Great Purple Hairstreak, certainly colorful enough for anyone, and interesting in how the color is carried. It was found by a group of more avid butterflyers who decended on the garden just as I was leaving.
Canon SX50HS in Program with -1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And for the Sunday Thought: when I arrived at the NBC at 8am on the day following a rare sighting, the staff, and the other early commers, assumed that I was chasing the Zebra Cross-wing. In fact I was not. As I told those who asked, I was just there to see what I could see and photograph. If the Zebra showed up, I would certainly enjoy it…but I was not about to make seeing or not seeing that one butterfly the test of the quality of my day. And as it turned out, that was a good thing, as I did not see the Zebra. But I had a spectacular day watching and photographing the rest of the bugs, and not a few birds, in and around the gardens.
While I was there someone received a call that a Amazon Kingfisher had been sighted about 12 miles south of Harlingen. The Amazon had only ever been recorded for the US once before. I did not even consider leaving the gardens to go look for it. Even when I got back to the Auditorium (home to the Festival), and saw other’s pictures of the Amazon, I was not seriously tempted to chase it. Rich Moncrief, my associate at the festival, eventually convinced me to go down and look…but the bird was absent while I was looking. It returned about 10 minutes after I left to go back to my duties at the booth.
And I am not at all disappointed. I might take a look tomorrow afternoon, after my morning field trip, if it is still being reported, but I might not too.
Again, I do not like to make one bird, or one bug, the measure of my day. If I had allowed myself to be disappointed, even a little, at not seeing the Amazon (or the Zebra) it would have been an insult to the Red-boardered Pixie and the Great Purple Hairstreak, and even the much more common Queens and Peacocks and skippers I photographed, to the hovering White-tailed Kite and the common Green Jays whose images I caught, and to all the other lovely bugs and birds of the morning. It would have diminished the wonder of everything I did see. And that would simply not be right.
And it would, definitely, be an insult to the giver of all these gifts! Or that’s what I think anyway.
Mexican Screech Owl
We were just finished photographing the resident Common Paraque at Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center when a Ranger and two tourists walked up and asked if we would like to see a Screech Owl.
Well yes!
This is apparently the Mexican variety, common in the Rio Grande Valley, and under study for separate species status. To give a sense of proportion take a look at the normal sized screw head upper left. This is a small owl. And you are seeing it’s whole body. Close study will show its little toes and talons at the bottom of the nest hole. Small.
Canon SX50HS in Program with iContrast and – 1/3rd EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Neo-tropic Bluet: NBC, TX
The National Butterfly Center (formerly the North American Butterfly Association Butterfly Gardens) south of Mission Texas is, of course, a world-class destination for lepidopterist, but it is also an excellent spot to observe and photograph Odonata…dragonflies and damselflies. According to one of the locals, this is most likely a Neo-tropic Bluet, relatively rare in the Rio Grande Valley, but then, rarities is what the NBC is all about. 
Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view from about 6 feet. f6.5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Variegated Meadowhawk, Estero Llano Grande TX
The Variegated Meadowhawk is a widely distributed dragonfly across much of North America. It breeds in a wide variety of habitats, and it flies both early in the season and late, so it is very likely that you have seen it somewhere before. According to the books it is a bit shy of people, but where I see them in numbers, they are relatively easy to approach.
This is a tel-macro, taken at full zoom plus 2x Digital Tel-Converter function (2400mm equivalent field of view) from just about the closest focus distance (4.5 feet) on the Canon SX50HS. I especially like the bright weathered wood of the boardwalk contrasted with the water, which is thrown completely black by the bright foreground.
f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 125. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Million $$ Junk Bird!
I have said this before…and it is still true…I have never seen a more spectacular junk bird than the Green Jay. Junk birds are birds that are so common that birders do not look twice. House Sparrow. Juncos in winter. Mallards on a pond. Etc. Now, I can (and should) say that to a real birder, there are no junk birds…but the fact is that even the best, most conscientious, most righteous birder pays little attention to the most common birds most of the time.
And there is no doubt that if you live in South Texas, especially in the Rio Grande Valley, Green Jays are junk birds. They are that common. Put out a feeder, they come. Don’t put out a feeder, they still come. They are everywhere, all the time. And their habits in your yard, like the habits of most Jays, are, shall we say, not endearing? The very definition of junk birds.
However, if you don’t live in South Texas, the bird that you are most likely to be impressed by on your first visit, is the Green Jay. I mean, it is in-your-eye vivid, and so striking, so over-the-top exotic, that you will never forget your first encounter. “What was that?!?!?!”
And, being a junk bird, it is easy to see. If you only make one or two trips to the Rio Grande Valley per year, you will never get tired of seeing Green Jays. I know I have not!
I have not got tired of photographing them either. I have enough Green Jay shots from my Texas trips to make a calendar…most likely a 5 year calendar. (Not yet a Mayan Calendar…but I am working on it.) 🙂
These shots are from the National Butterfly Center gardens in Mission Texas.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. –1/3 EV Exposure Compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/100th and 1/125th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Anhinga: Estero Llano Grande TX
The Anhinga is sometimes called the snake bird, not, surprisingly, because it feeds on snakes (it does not), but because it contorts its long and highly mobile neck into such snake-like postures. It seems that no contortion is too extreme. This bird is, of course, facing the other way. That is the bird’s back we are looking at. I can not even begin to imagine how it got its head around there. It looks to me like it might hurt. 🙂 While this female appears to be in full breeding plumage, it still lacks the bright green eye shadow it will sport in January when the season really comes on.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view (1200mm optical plus 1.5x digital tel-converter). f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Thornbush Dasher: Estero Llano Grande TX
I was going through odonata withdrawal in Maine during November, so it was a pleasure to go the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas where the dragons and damsels were still flying. This was literally my first dragon of the trip. I was hoping it was a new species for me…but I photographed it last year in the Valley as well. It is a Thornbush Dasher, somewhat loosely related the to the common Blue Dasher found in New England and country wide (except for the Rocky Mountains)…but the Thornbush is restricted to Texas. I really like the bokeh on this shot!
Here is a Blue Dasher for comparison, taken only a moment later and a few steps further on.
Though they are very similar in superficial look, and share a “name”, a good back view or top view of the Thornbush shows it is not same kind of bug at all. Note the flare in the tail. Note too how the angle of the light turns the eyes in last photo a very Blue Dasher green. 🙂
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1) 2) and 3) 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320 and 800. 4) 1200mm equivalent. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 500. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.