Posts in Category: Rio Grande
Red Saddlebags!
Red Saddlebags. Estero Llano Grande
In Maine we get an occasional Carolina Saddlebags…the other red saddlebags…and lots of Black Saddlebags, but I am always delighted to see the true Red Saddlebags Dragonfly when I visit Texas. It took 3 trips to Estero Llano Grande State Park World Birding Center south of Weslaco Texas to catch one perched in good light, but it was worth it. 🙂
Sony HX400V at 2400mm equivalent field of view (1200mm optical plus 2x Clear Image Zoom). Shutter preferred. 1/500th @ ISO 250 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Lenovo Miix 2 Windows tablet.
Great Kiskadee Hunting
Great Kiskadee, Santa Ana NWR
Fishing is perhaps more accurate. Given that I have seen Kiskadees around water on every trip to South Texas, I should have made the connection, but it was not until this recent trip that I actually saw one catch a fish. That was at Edinburg Wetlands, and this bird, glowing in the early morning light, is at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, but the fishing behavior, once you are tuned into it, is obvious here as well. I suspect fish do not make up a large portion of the Kiskadee’s diet, but it must be a real metabolic bonanza when the bird catches one.
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/500th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped in Lightroom on my Lenovo Miix 2 Windows tablet.
Egret Action
Two Great Egrets and a Snowy
There were large numbers of Egrets and Herons on either side of the canal (resaca) at the municipal park next to the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands World Birding Center in Edinburg Texas when we visited on a rainy day last week. As Egrets will do, the males on one side of the resaca were “facing off” with the males on the other side. I have seen it in all sized bodies of water, and at all kinds of distances. It is most dramatic of course in smaller pools where the Egrets go beak to beak. The closest of the Great Egrets here shows the typical posture.
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 500 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Giant Swallowtail
Giant Swallowtail
The Giant Swallowtail is among the more spectacular bugs in North America, on size alone…but the coloring is not to shabby either…especially if you consider both upper and under views. In my experience it is hard to photograph as it is continuously nectaring, hovering in front of flowers with wings quivering rapidly. And then, of course, the contrast between the black uperside and the yellow bands can turn those bands white if you don’t hit the exposure just right. It is definitely worth the effort. These are my most successful Giant Swallowtail images to date. I include both top and bottom views here…which is the only way to do the bug justice 🙂
Estero Llano Grande State Park World Birding Center, Weslaco TX. Sony HX400V. 370mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 250 and 100 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Phototastic Pro on my Windows tablet.
Feathered Eyelids! Happy Sunday.
Common Paraque, Estero Llano Grande SP World Birding Center
I mean, maybe others already knew, but I certainly did not know that the Paraque has feathered eyelids. Makes me wonder how many other birds might have tiny feathers on their lids? This specimen is the faithful Common Paraque that roosts beside the Alligator Lake trail at Estero Llano Grande State Park World Birding Center south of Weslaco Texas, and has roosted in the same spot for at least the past 6 years. It is perhaps the most photographed Paraque in the world 🙂 But that, of course, does not stop me from photographing it again on every trip. Who can resist? This year the lighting was just right for this really tight telephoto shot…tight enough to show the feathers on its eyelids. (That will now probably become a “saying.” “He was close enough to see the feathers on her eyelids!” Etc.)
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/160th (testing the limits of the Sony image stabilization, but it was relatively dark in the paraque roost) @ISO 1000 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Feathered eyelids. I am amazed. I am amused. Though I make light of it, the fact that the Paraque’s eyelids are feathered fills me with wonder and delight, and a great sense of thankfulness to see and be part of this astounding life…to be able to record and celebrate the details and the beauty. Thank you God. Happy Sunday!
This post is early, since I will be headed out to find more wonders as soon as the sun is up!
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.
Giant Sulphur
We will drop back a few weeks to my trip to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. The trouble with November is that I get to go to two of my favorite places for photography…the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico…and when you consider that both these trips closely follow a few days in Cape May, New Jersey during fall migration…well, the images just kind of pile up. It is part of my photographic discipline to process as I go. It is a very rare day when I have not selected and edited and uploaded the images I want to keep from that day’s shooting, but then there they are, on Google+ at least, and often on Smugmug as well, waiting for their moment in the sun when I post them publically. Of course only one in ten actually gets posted. In November and on into December (when I generally do not travel), I have to make a conscious effort to go back and pick up the more outstanding images from the previous trips.
This shot is from the National Butterfly Center south of Mission Texas. It is a Giant Sulpher butterfly hanging on Turks Cap. The Turks Cap is a native species in Texas, and goes by many other names…Wax Mallow, Mexican Apple, Bleeding Heart…etc. I like the shot in part because of the tiny beads of moisture on the flower (it was early in the day), and the way the brightly lit flower and bug are set off against the dark background. And, against all odds, it is correctly exposed! The Giant and other Sulphurs are among the hardest butterflies to photograph in the sun as the yellow will often block up completely and all detail will be lost.
Canon SX50HS in Program with -1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. ISO 250 @ 1/1000th @ f6.5. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And Snow Geese layered on the air…
Despite the cloudy, and even snowy, weather, I did get some good flight shots from Bosque del Apache this year…including two different panic sequences. This one happened on our very first round of the tour loop, the first afternoon we spent there. We drove up on the corn fields at the North end of the loop just in time to see the geese rise and swirl in the air for a good 10 minutes. They were far out in the fields, but with the reach of the Canon SX50HS, I could still fill the frame with geese.
I like the multiple layers of geese here. If you have seen this happen you know that the geese rise in mass, but soon sort themselves into something like a circular holding pattern…so you have geese passing any point in the sky in at least two different directions…one group in front and one behind. It can get more complex than that as individual geese jockey for leadership of the flock…and groups break away from the main body to follow…but the swirling motion predominates until they all serial down to settle once more in the fields.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. About 1150mm equivalent field of view. ISO 800 @ 1/800th @ f6.5. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Bird of Paradise in Texas
Leaving Bosque del Apache for the moment, just taking a break, here is something for #floralfriday and the day after Thanksgiving…aka Black Friday. A little color to break the shopping gloom (shopping madness?). I always love Bird of Paradise. It is such an outrageous plant. I was, therefore, delighted to find one in bloom outside my hotel room in Harlingen Texas while there in early November for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. I generally only see them in San Diego in February and March. And this plant, with just a few blooms, was well exposed and easy to photograph, unlike the often tangled masses of BofP in Southern CA. Had to do it.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Macro mode. f2.9 @ 1/45th @ ISO 100. 28mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.