This is your invitation to join me for three days of great bird photography at Fort Davis, Texas from August 22-24. You could get lucky and finish the week with 6-7 species. Where else in Texas can you do that?
Lucifer Hummingbird, male hovering in flight.
Rivoli’s Hummingbird hovering near feeder in Davis Mountains, Texas.Broad-tailed
Hummingbird, male
Black-chinned Hummingbird male in flight.
Costa’s Hummingbird, male on feeder, Davis Mts.
Calliope Hummingbird, male flying toward me.
Rufous Hummingbird, male hovering.
I saw all of these last year at our feeders and photographed them all except the Calliope. Several in my workshop group even got the little guy. Costa’s was the only bird that wouldn’t cooperate by hovering near a feeder. He would land on it but never hovered. Photograph with me and I’ll show you how to make him hover…
Acorn Woodpecker, male feeding, Davis Mountains, Texas
White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) on a Cholla cactus skeleton.
There are several feeders and water sites mixed with our hummingbird feeders at the photo site. We regularly saw ladder-backed and acorn woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatch, Woodhouse’s Jay, wild turkey, black-headed grosbeak, bushtit, and a host of other songbirds.
Contact me at lditto@larryditto.com if you want to attend this workshop. I’ll send you all the details right away. There is space for 5 more photographers, so act quickly.
along with several other species for your photographic enjoyment!
Whooping Crane pair flying in front of tourist boat loaded with photographers on Aransas Bay at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas.
We have reserved a boat and guide from Aransas Bay Birding Charters for five photographers on January 18-20, 2022 at Rockport, Texas. Whooping cranes and other Aransas Bay species like sandhill cranes, American oystercatchers, osprey, various ducks and other water birds will be our subjects with the primary emphasis on getting great whooping crane photos in their coastal Texas winter habitat.
If you are interested, contact me now at: lditto@larryditto.com or 956-330-2114. I will send you the details and get you registered. Some specifics of the trip are mentioned on my website at www.larryditto.com.
The weather yesterday was typical for a south Texas summer day… about 100 degrees with super high humidity and it had rained an inch or so in the area where I planned to photograph. I started down the trail to my photo blind with a wagon (garden wagon) of heavy gear and hit heavy mud about half way. Oh well (I thought), I’ve come this far, I can make it. And, I did, but just barely short of a heat stroke.
It was so humid, I couldn’t dry off, so I sat there for three hours with muddy shoes and soaking wet in sweat. Luckily, I had plenty of water and the blind was in the shade. Since a friend had photographed three species of kingfishers and a gray hawk from that blind the day before, I was expecting a boatload of bird diversity. I could tough it out if the photography was going to be that good. Of course, a lot of those birds didn’t show, but it was a pretty good day. After I got home, had a bath, and looked at the day’s images, I came to the conclusion that almost any day spent photographing wild critters is pretty special.
Here are a few of yesterday’s photos:
Great Kiskadee eating insect.
Green Heron on perch.
Great Kiskadee hunting bugs.
Snowy Egret fishing.
Red-eared Slider turtles sunning on floating log.
Green Kingfisher male with fish.
Green Kingfisher landing.
Green Kingfisher, male stretching.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for checking out the newsletter.
Last week, I spent three days guiding a group of photographers in the Davis Mountains, Texas as a part of the Davis Mountains Hummingbird Celebration. The trip has become an annual event where we shoot at a private garden and woodland site with a fantastic variety of “hummers” and other birds. I advertised the trip on my website’s Photo Tour Schedule so most of the photographers had been signed up for over a year (we had a year off because of Covid 19 concerns).
Here are some of the birds I got, but several photographers got even more species:
Rufous Hummingbird, male hovering, Davis Mts., Texas
Rufous Hummingbird, male in flight
Black-chinned Hummingbird, male hovering among garden flowers, Davis Mountains, Texas.
Lucifer Hummingbird, molting male at feeder, Davis Mts., Texas.
Here are a couple of woodpecker images that represent a small part of a much larger Davis Mountains collection of late summer birds.
Acorn Woodpecker, male feeding, Davis Mountains, Texas
Ladder-backed Woodpecker, male feeding in pinyon tree, Davis Mts.
But, hummingbirds were our primary targets. I got several species, but still missed the Anna’s and Calliope.
Broad-tailed Hummingbird, male hovering near feeder.
Broad-tailed Hummingbird, male perched.
Costa’s Hummingbird, male on feeder, Davis Mts.
A Costa’s Hummingbird male had been around for several days, but was extremely difficult to photograph except at this feeder. This is an extremely rare species in the Davis Mountains, so we were lucky to see it.
Rivoli’s Hummingbird, male hovering near perch.
I got both male and female Rivoli’s Hummingbirds, but they are a tough target. These large hummers like to stay in the shadows and approach feeders as shy visitors. Photographers do best when equipped with cameras that auto-focus well in low light.
Rufous and Black-chinned Hummingbirds are the most common late summer hummers in the Davis Mountains. The male Rufous has a showy golden-copper-black throat (depending upon light direction and intensity), so they are reasonably easy to find and photograph.
Rufous Hummingbird, male on Shepherd’s Hook, Davis Mts., Texas.
Rufous Hummingbird, male perched on fence, Davis Mountains, Texas.
Rufous Hummingbird perched on Shepherd’s Hook, Davis Mountains.
If you always wanted to take the Galveston FeatherFest Pre-festival boat trip at Rockport, Texas, you are in luck. Three registrants just dropped out for health reasons, so there is still time for you to get on board. Contact the Festival headquarters in Galveston and get registered; just like registering for any other field trip at the festival.
Great Egret ruffling breeding plumage.
When you register, they will give you the basic information on where to go, where to stay and our daily schedule. We will try to meet for dinner the night before our first trip and discuss everything.
Roseate Spoonbill in flight
American Oystercatcher landing in Aransas Bay, Texas.
We will photograph on two mornings from a very stable platform aboard Captain Kevin Sims’s boat. Photographing will be a short distance from an active wading bird nesting island…not too close to bother the birds but close enough for you to get fantastic flight and perch shots of a good variety of birds like Roseate Spoonbill, Great Egret, Snow Egret, Reddish Egret, Great Blue Heron, Tri-colored Heron and other species in breeding plumage.
I crossed the river levee near Brownsville and drove through the Border Wall gate Tuesday morning without seeing a Border Patrol vehicle (trust me, they were watching from somewhere). The crisp autumn air was invigorating as I walked to the photo blind with a load of heavy gear… without sweating. As the sun climbed, I could hear migrating sandhill cranes high above, winging their way southward to Mexico for the winter. It was a perfect morning for wildlife photography.
After getting up at 5:00 AM, I photographed from daylight until 11:00 AM before heading home to edit images at the computer. Here are a few of the captures from the outing:
Great Egret and White Ibis next to black willow on Sabal Palm Sanctuary.Great Kiskadees with a dragonfly breakfast.Green Kingfisher searching for an unsuspecting minnow.Green Kingfisher avoiding detection by a passing peregrine falcon. With the falcon circling, the green kingfisher adopts a more agressive posture and the falcon leaves. Cautious Least Grebes collecting some of the morning’s warmth under their feathers. A drake Mottled Duck spent a half hour in front of my blind, drinking and preening. My favorite shot of the day, a Ringed Kingfisher diving for small fish.
I’m hoping to get a few nice butterfly shots before Thanksgiving, so the next trip will be out to the National Butterfly Center south of Mission, Texas. Recently, butterfly watchers have identified a half dozen rare butterfly species along with hundreds of more common lepidopterans. It’s worth the trip if you can get there while the days are warm.
Last week, I visited some of my favorite habitats in the lower Rio Grande area of Texas to search for wildlife photography opportunities. I hope you like the variety of subjects and life stages depicted.
Blue Spiny Lizards on mesquite bark, s. Texas.
Dr. Beto Gutierrez spotted these guys on a huge mesquite as we traversed his ranch in Starr Co.
Beto and I spent about a half hour beside Dorothy’s Pond on the Santa Clara Photo Ranch that day. The birds weren’t there so we captured a few dragonfly images before heading out. That’s a Thornbush Dasher hovering a Roseate Skimmer.
Screech Owls in nest box at the Gutierrez property.Lark Sparrow landing at Santa Clara Photo Ranch in late summer.Ground Squirrel inspecting a dead and bloated mouse.Big white-tail buck headed to the woods at sunrise.
A week ago, many whitetail bucks were still wearing velvet-covered antlers while some had begun to shed the bloody, furlike skin.
White-tail buck shedding strands of velvet from antlers in late summer.Big bucks enjoying the early morning sun. * Note the reddish appearance of the hardened antlers on two of these bucks that had just shed their velvet.White-winged Dove flushing from a water hole.
Autumn starts today and I’m at home working on this report and trying to capture a few hummingbird and flower photos around the house. Let’s save those for next week.
I began photographing a few white-tailed deer and wild turkey in late August. Fawns were dropping in July and getting pretty active by August. Meanwhile, the big bucks finished growing new antlers. Late summer is always a magic time when I can capture images of fawns and large bucks at the same time and location. It’s also that time of year when some turkey hens still have young poults.
Here are some photographs from recent weeks:
White-tailed Deer, buck eating huisache leaves, s. Texas.White-tailed Deer, buck in velvet running through meadowWhite-tailed Deer, doe and fawn feeding at sunrise, s. Texas.Cottontail Rabbit playing with fawn White-tailed Deer.
In the image above, a cottontail rabbit jumps from the grass next to fawn. The rabbits seemed to play tag for a half hour or more with the little deer. On several occasions, they ran between its legs but the grass was too high for me to get a good shot
White-tailed Deer, fawn out for her morning run.White-tailed Deer, fawn watching large buck in velvet.White-tailed Deer, large bucks in velvetWild Turkey, hen and poult feeding in meadow, s. Texas.Wild Turkey, poult snapping at mosquitos.
Bucks will be shedding velvet from their antlers for the next two-three weeks and I hope to capture nice shots of that. Maybe I can find some fresh fall migrant birds and autumn wildflowers, too.
In recent weeks, we had migrating birds arriving with the hurricane and with the latest weather fronts. I wasn’t getting out of the house to photograph until I saw a good concentration of hummingbirds Monday on the Fire Bush plants at my son’s house. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I was there for the action.
The following images were made without artificial lighting or any special setup. The bushes were covered in red blooms which made it difficult to isolate birds in flight. Instead, I focused a cluster of blooms with a clean background and pushed the shutter button as birds came to feed.
Here is a small collection of hummers from September 8 and 9:
Ruby-throated Hummingbird female feeding at Fire Bush in s. Texas garden.Ruby-throated Hummingbird male.Ruby-throated Hummingbird male at Fire Bush flowers.Ruby-throated Hummingbird male feeding at Fire Bush, s. Texas gardern.Ruby-throated Hummingbird, subadult female, autumn, s. Texas.Subadult Rufous Hummingbird, s. Texas.
If my identification is correct, this is the first Rufous Hummingbird I’ve been able to photograph in the lower Rio Grande area.
I plan to post again in the next day or two with a few deer and turkey shots.
The marshes at South Padre Island offer some fine bird photography almost anytime of the year, but mid-May is one of my favorite. Here is a sample of what was happening in the marsh earlier this week.
Great Blue Heron landing in marsh .Red-winged Blackbird male singing from the boardwalk handrail.
This courting male Red-winged Blackbird was all over the place.
Red-winged Blackbird doing the splits between cattails. Muddy feet are of no concern when it’s mating time. Mating Killdeer dismount.. Black-necked Stilts dancing by the Salt Grass.
Black-necked Stilt, female on nest
Black-necked Stilt male preparing to incubate eggs.
Black-necked Stilt, female feeding
A late afternoon fog bank gave the stilts enough shade to keep the eggs from baking while the pair poked about for supper. Their eggs should hatch during the Memorial Day weekend, but 4 days of bumper to bumper vehicle traffic will prevent all but the most intrepid wildlife photographers from recording it.
