Posts in Category: Rio Grande
Roseate Skimmer, Quinta Mazatlan
Between a week in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and a week in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico for the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache, I have added over 1000 images to weiw.lightshedder.com. So, expect some catch up over the next few weeks as we move through Thanksgiving and into a few weeks in the home and Virginia offices. 🙂
This is a Roseate Skimmer, on of my favorite Dragonflies, from the grounds of Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen Texas. This, like many of the odonata I saw in the Valley, is a very worn bug…possibly a migrant from further north. There are winter texans…I suppose there are winter texan odonata.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
12/8/2011: Prickly Pear, Arroyo Colorado WBC
By an odd coincidence (I don’t actually believe in coincidence, but it makes a neat shorthand for “I have not yet figured out why”) I am back in Texas for the second time in less than a month. North Texas this time. Graham, in fact, which according to the brochure in the hotel lobby, is The Gem of North Texas. Eventually you will see the sunset pics I took last night from the high bluff south of town, but for today, to keep it in Texas, I will return to the Rio Grande Valley and Arroyo Colorado World Birding Center in Harlingen Texas. I popped out there after setting up my booth at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival last month. Bird life, as I detailed in another post, was sparse (totally the wrong time of day), but there were dragonflies, and some very interesting light effects on the forest of tree-like prickly pear cactus. As I was working the area, I zoomed in on this tight composition of a single pad. I love the way the light is caught in the spines, and the receding planes of focus behind the pad in the foreground…and the general geometry of the curves.
Canon SX40HS at 840mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 200. Program with iContrast and –1/3ED exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/1/2011: Black Saddlebags Mating Wheel, Sabal Palms TX
I have really gotten into dragonflies this year, for some unknown reason. I am always looking for them, and, since it is new, I can generally find a new bug on most trips. The difference between this and birding is that I am photographing every dragonfly I see…or at least every dragonfly I can catch perched. I saw many Black Saddlebags this summer in Maine…they are so distinctive they are easy to identify on the wing…but it was several months before I found one sitting where I could photograph it.
On my recent trip to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, Black Saddlebags were everywhere but, again, perched Black Saddlebags were scarce. I was delighted to find this mating wheel within a step or two of the upland trail at Sabal Palms Sanctuary near Brownsville. This shot is at 840mm equivalent from about 4.5 feet (closest focus).
Engaging the 1.5x digital converter provided this more macro view of the head grip the male has on the female.
Or there is this view showing the male’s wings to good advantage, taken at 840mm equivalent plus 2x digital converter.
1) Exposure Time:0.0015s (1/640) Aperture:f/5.8 ISO:200 2) Exposure Time:0.002s (1/500)Aperture:f/5.8 ISO:200 3) Exposure Time:0.0025s (1/400) Aperture:f/5.8 ISO:200
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
And I did see several Red Saddlebags at Santa Anna NWR…but no photo yet!
11/22/2011: Peek-a-boo, Red-shouldered Hawk
We are back from our travels for the moment, having been, in the past two weeks, in both the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and New Mexico (Harlingen and Bosque del Apache near Socorro). I have large back-log of scenics and bird shots to post over the next while, so brace yourselves 🙂
This is an immature Red-Shouldered Hawk that apparently thought the few leaves between us hid him from view…as he was sitting no more than 30 feet from the main access trail at Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge where at least our whole bus-load of birders got to admire him. This shot was taken with a Canon SD100HS point and shoot camera through the eyepiece of a ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. You can see the out of focus foliage in front of the bird, but, though I could find no clear line of sight, the highly selective focus on the spotting scope made focusing through the foliage possible. It was also a matter of timing as the brisk breeze was moving the leaves so that the head and eye of the bird were only sometimes clear and well lighted. I was shooting bursts of 4 frames per second shots and selected the best for final processing.
Canon SD100HS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of something like a 1200mm lens on a full frame DSLR. 1/100th @ ISO 100. f4 effective.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
And another with the zoom on the camera run up to max at 4x.
And, just for fun, a comparison shot from the Canon SX40HS at full optical plus 2x digital tel-converter for an 1680mm equivalent field of view.
11/18/2011: Snows in Flight, Bosque del Apache NWR
This is what Bosque del Apache is all about! With 30,000 Snow Geese on the refuge in November, and the November high desert light, the spectacle is unending. (And that is without reckoning in the 14,000 Sandhill Cranes!) Yesterday afternoon I stood by the Flight Deck pond and watched the show for an hour or more, until a restless Bald Eagle put the whole mass of geese in the air at once and resettled them along the back side of the pond (and points south).
This is a shot with the Canon SX40HS at full optical (840mm), cropped from full frame for composition and image scale. f6.3 @ 1/1250 @ ISO 160. Program with iContrast.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
11/10/2010: Green Malachite, Rio Grande Valley TX
As you read this, I am on my way to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, Harlingen, and the RGV Birding and Nature Festival. I always try to spend an afternoon at the NABA Butterfly Gardens near Bensten State Park and the World Birding Center. And I always hope for a Malachite. Two years ago, Malachites were fairly common and I got several good shots, though I am still hoping for the perfect one.
Sony DSC H50 at 468mm equivalent, f4.5 @ 1/100 @ ISO 400. Programmed auto.
Processed for Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen in Lightroom.
Watch this space for this year’s crop of Rio Grande images. I hope. I hope. 🙂