Posts in Category: Texas
Texas Blue Spiny Lizard
Our local guide for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival River Pontoon trip on the Riverside Dreamer alerted us early to her favorite part of the trip. It was an unassuming spot. An old pump station and a section of river bank reinforced with broken chunks of concrete and old truck and tractor tires. The boat slowed and drifted in closer, and sure enough, there were a couple of Texas Blue Spiny Lizards basking in the sun on the debris, a few feet above the water. The tbsl is very similar to the more common Collared Lizard of North Texas and the rest of the southwest, but is restricted to the Texas section of the upper Rio Grande Valley. In fact these specimens are south of their normal range. This gentleman is about 10 inches tip to tail…the largest lizard to inhabit Texas.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Cropped for composition. This was shot from a moving boat…which is testimony to the SX50HS’ image stabilization.
White-tailed Kite
So, to do this justice, you need to click the image and open it full screen in the lightbox viewer (or click here). The sky was dull overcast yesterday at Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center, but when I saw this White-tailed Kite “kiting” out over the tropics section of the center (the former trailer park), I had to try. The Canon SX50HS has a much improved Sports mode, and I got of two bursts of 10 rapid sequence shots. The best part of the mode is that the auto focus seems to be tuned for moving subjects…and picks up birds in flight very well.
Of course the Kite is an ideal subject, as it hovers in one spot while hunting. And at least yesterday it was hovering not kiting…its wings were in constant motion to hold it in one place.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Cropped for image scale (in Lr) and pasted up in PhotoShop Elements.
Texas Black Saddlebags
Actually this might not be a resident Texas Black-saddlebags. BSBs are long distance migrants and this specimen looks well worn. It could conceivably even be one of the BSBs I saw emerge at my pond in Maine earlier this summer. Wouldn’t that be strange and wonderful.
The BSB is the single most abundant dragonfly I am seeing on this trip to Texas…even Wandering Glider is a distant second. There are BSBs everywhere I have been in the past 5 days, and in large numbers. Impressive.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Great Kiskadees for Songbird Saturday
This is another shot of the Great Kiskadee displaying at Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center. It is a rarely observed behavior and I feel privileged to have seen it, and even more so to have caught it, however imperfectly, as a digital image.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 500. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Red-saddlebags At Last!
I have photographed Black Saddlebags in both Texas and Maine, and I have one really bad photo of a Carolina Saddlebags from my Kennebunk dragon pond this summer, but my ambition for this trip to south Texas and New Mexico was to find and photograph a Red Saddlebags. They don’t get as far north as Maine and a friend who posted a pic from NM said the last record for the upper Rio Grande Valley is sometime in September, so my only real hope was Texas.
My first day in Harlingen I got out to Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center…which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite places for birding, bugging, and photography…and, sure enough, there were a smattering of Red Saddlebags among the abundant Blacks. I had, however, about given up on getting one to sit still for a photo when I found a little reed tip out by Grebe Marsh where one was returning with fair frequency. I watched it for fifteen minutes, missing it every time…it was in touch-and-go mode…but I made note of the location to check on my way back to the visitor center.
And there it was, on my way back, on the same reed tip…and this time it sat while I got a few shots, and then returned twice to the same perch for more shots at different angles. I was so blessed!
The perch was high, above eye-level, so the angle is not great…but still…a Red Saddlebags!
It, like the Blacks it was flying with, was a well worn bug…likely a migrant from further north mating one last time on its final journey south. (Some of the Blacks were tattered enough for me to believe I might have photographed the same bug a few months ago in Maine.)
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Red-crescent Scrub-Hairstreak
Increasingly Birding Festivals are as much about butterflies and dragonflies for me as they are about birds. I suppose it is just a phase I am going through. This week I am at the Rio Grande Valley Birding and Nature Festival in Harlingen Texas, and there is almost nowhere in the US that is better for butterflies than the Rio Grande Valley. As for dragonflies, there are actually more species in New England than anywhere else, but there are some dragons here I will, of course, never see in Maine. And I do pay attention to the birds as well!
I walked up on a knowledgeable gentleman photographing this Hairstreak at Estero Llano Grande State Park and World Birding Center yesterday. He was quite excited as it is a rare species: the Red-crescent Scrub-Hairsteak. I almost certainly would not have even seen it (it is tiny), and I certainly would not have seen it as anything special, if the gentleman had not been practically on his stomach trying to get a good angle on the bug. As it was I had to go ask.
With the reach of the Canon SX50HS’ long zoom I was able to get decent shots over his shoulder. Estero Llano Grande has extensive plantings for butterflies…and lots of ponds for dragonflies.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. –2/3 EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
12/21/2011: Black-bellied Whistling Ducks
The Black-bellied Whistling Duck is a big, colorful duck…goose sized really…and there is nowhere better to see them than the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. This is Edinburg Scenic Wetlands World Birding Center in Edinburg Texas. Edinburg Wetlands is one of my favorite spots to digiscope birds (take pictures through the eyepiece of my spotting scope) and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks always make good targets.
The final shot is not digiscoped but it shows off the pink feet. It was taken at 1260mm equivalent with the 1.5x digital tel-converter on the Canon SX40HS.
1) and 2) Canon SD100HS behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope for equivalents of about 4000mm and 1500mm. ISO 100 at 1/80th and 1/200th.
3) Canon SX40HS at 1260mm equivalent (840mm optical x 1.5 digital converter). f8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 800.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/14/2011: Cedar Waxwing, Wildcatter Ranch TX
Cedar Waxwings always fascinate me. I don’t see them that often…once or twice a year…but their chatter, which is right at the top of my aging hearing…puts me on full alert. A small flock was moving through Wildcatter Ranch in Graham Texas on my bird walk last Friday, and I was able to catch this one perched well in the sun. The other thing I love about them is the super fine, silky feathering.
I like the eye in this shot…with just enough definition in the black mask to be satisfying.
These shots are with the Canon SX40HS at full optical zoom plus 2x tel-converter for an equivalent focal length of 1680mm, hand held. Pretty impressive results from a Point and Shoot.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/13/2011: Wildcatter Dawn
Wildcatter Ranch bills itself as the Resort Ranch in the North Texas hill country. It is a working ranch and they cater to corporate retreats and weekend getaways for those who enjoy luxury rustic. The restaurant and conference buildings are strung out along the top of a narrow ridge and the views off either side are wonderful. This is dawn coming to the hills of North Texas.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/500th @ ISO 250. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
This image got a lot more processing than I normally do. I was experimenting with Lightzone again, and then trying to approximate (and improve on) the Lightzone tone-mapped effects in Lightroom and Photomatix. In Lightroom I used the dueling Graduated Filter effect technique to lighten the foreground and darken the sky. That produced a pleasing image but with a very soft sky. In an attempt to bring some definition to the clouds, I exported the Lightroom image to Photomatix for tone mapping. I began with the Painterly setting and then backed off on the controls until I got the definition I wanted, without the artificial look (I hope).
This next was taken a few moments later and further down the ridge. It received similar treatment in Lightroom and Photomatix.
12/11/2011: Dawn Church, Happy Sunday
Coming out of the hotel to catch the shuttle to Wildcater Ranch one morning last week in Graham Texas, I looked to the east and was taken with the dawn light behind this lighted steeple, and with the silhouettes of the trees. I framed it several different ways, but this was the keeper.
Canon SX40HS at 250mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/40th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought: Photography is all about catching the play of light and shadow. Note that it is not “light and darkness”…it is definitely light and shadow. We are creatures of light. Light is our reality. Darkness is simply the absence of light. It has no substance of its own, and it always flees at the first hint of light. Every photograph is a record of the light that stuck the film or the sensor…producing a chemical change or a charge that is then rendered into an image of reality. Shadow is only the record of where the light did not reach.
Or taking a word from another tradition: “The light of the world has come into the world, and it utterly defeats the darkness.” That is the promise and that is the reality we celebrate this season. So happy Sunday…and an early Merry Christmas, from a dawn in Graham Texas.