Last week at Galveston’s nature festival, FeatherFest, I helped lead several wildlife photography field trips and seminars.   It was my fifth festival and each year I share in the fun of photographing birds and landscapes along the coast from Rockport to High Island at the upper end of Bolivar Peninsula.  The following collection of images is offered to give you a glimpse at the diversity of Texas coastal birdlife during spring migration and nesting:

Be sure to click on the first photo to enlarge and sharpen for viewing. 

The weather on most mornings during FeatherFest  was gloomy, but colorful birds and intense bird breeding activity livened the scene.  Most of these images were made with a Canon 7D Mark II and 100-400 mm lens, handheld.  For the spoonbill, the camera settings were 1/1600 sec @ f5.6 and ISO 800.

The highlight of our photography sessions was a trip to High Island and the Audubon Sanctuary there where thousands of herons, egrets, ibis and spoonbills nest.

I first saw this crested caracara walking amid hundreds of laughing gulls resting on the ground in a beautiful landscape of Rockport wildflowers.  Eventually, it gave up on finding an easy meal and flew directly at me.  The Canon AI Servo worked perfectly in predicting the bird’s approach and holding focus for several frames.

Our  photo group captured many species and thousands of images from a boat at Aransas and Galveston Bays.

At Port Aransas we encountered a mini-fallout of migrating birds forced to ground by an approaching coastal cold front during their northward flight across the U.S.

On my last evening in Galveston, our group got to see thousands of gulls and brown pelicans swarming over their nesting islands as the sun sank.

If you are a photographer, think hard about joining some of the photography sessions at FeatherFest next April.

LARRY

Last weekend, I was in Canadian, Texas with several other photographers to try for lesser prairie chickens on the lek (booming ground).  The weather was fantastic and the birds were active.  Two years ago, three of us spent three days in a Canadian rain, so we were primed for sunshine and birds.

One of my problems has been (and continues to be) realizing that when I’m photographing wildlife in action, I need to pull back and leave a lot of room for wings, legs, etc.  This time around, I had the Canon 7d Mark II fixed with the new Canon 100-400 mm lens.  It seemed the ideal combination for this session, but maintaining space was still a challenge.

As usual, the birds were on the lek well before dawn each day and the wait for shooting light was stressful.  I wanted to capture as many “cock fighting” sequences as possible, but it was an extreme challenge.     Here are some of the images from the two-day shoot:

Click on an image to enlarge and sharpen it for viewing.

Since prairie chickens seldom visit the lek during the afternoon, we spent that time looking for other wildlife and scenics.

Male prairie chickens constantly run and fly about the lek challenging other males.

Male lesser prairie chickens jump into the air, kicking and pecking each other.  At the end of the brief encounters, one or both males often had a mouth full of feathers.

Next year, I would like to take a group north for lesser and greater prairie chickens.  It could be a great early April trip.

*** I’m going to lead a Lucifer Hummingbird photography workshop on a habitat west of Big Bend National Park on August 15-17. The birds WILL be there  This is a pre-festival photo session with the Davis Mountains Hummingbird Festival in Fort Davis.  Only 6 slots are available, so let me know soon if you want to sign up.

I still have those two lenses for sale: Nikon 80-200 mm and Canon 300 mm, f4.

Larry