Daily Archives: April 19, 2016

Last Week Around the Texas Coast

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. 

Roseate Spoonbill spreading its wings for a soft landing.
Roseate Spoonbill spreading its wings for a soft landing.

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.

Reddish Egrets in breeding plumage
Reddish Egrets in breeding plumage
Great Egrets pair displaying at nest with young.
Great Egrets pair displaying at nest with young.

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.

Roseate Spoonbill with nest building material.
Roseate Spoonbill with nest building material.
Laughing Gulls mating amid wildflowers in a Rockport city park.
Laughing Gulls mating amid wildflowers in a Rockport city park.
Caracara searching for gull nests among the wildflowers in Rockport.
Caracara searching for gull nests among the wildflowers in Rockport.

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.

Great Blue Heron in flight over Aransas Bay.
Great Blue Heron in flight over Aransas Bay.

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

Great Egret landing
Great Egret landing
Great Egret displaying its plume feathers.
Great Egret displaying its plume feathers.
Forster's Terns bonding
Forster’s Terns bonding on the boardwalk at the Port Aransas Birding Center.

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.

Black-throated Green Warbler male feeding on insects
Black-throated Green Warbler male feeding on insects.
Scarlet Tanager male in a mulberry tree.
Scarlet Tanager male in a mulberry tree.
Least Bittern with fish in the cattails at Port Aransas Birding Center.
Least Bittern with fish in the cattails at Port Aransas Birding Center.
Purple Gallinule eating grass seeds at the High Island Sanctuary.
Purple Gallinule eating grass seeds at the High Island Sanctuary.
Sunlight on seagull wings and tails in Galveston Bay.
Sunlight on seagull wings and tails in Galveston Bay.
Brown Pelicans in flight over Galveston Bay.
Brown Pelicans in flight over Galveston Bay.

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.

Brown Pelicans and laughing gulls at sunset on Galveston Bay
Brown Pelicans and laughing gulls at sunset on Galveston Bay.

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

LARRY