One of the highlights of my visit to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival was my first tour on the Pontoon Boat trip on the Rio Grande River itself. I was assigned as a guide, otherwise I would have missed the adventure, since I would never have thought of a boat trip as an ideal photographic opportunity.

As it turned out, happily, the Pontoon Boat is great for photography. It is relatively slow at its fastest, and very stable, and the captain is super cooperative with photographers, jockeying and steadying the boat, and getting in close to the banks, to provide photographers with excellent views.

And you can get close. Wildlife on the bank does not see people on a boat in the river as a threat, so they tend to sit while the boat drifts well inside their normal comfort zone. This handsome Red-shouldered Hawk for instance, never did lift off as we drifted by right below it.

I especially like the blue sky with a light gauze of clouds background 🙂

Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view (1200 optical plus 1.5x digital tel-converter). f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 125. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.