It’s about time to start the winter/spring photo tour season. In 13 more days, I will be leading a whooping crane “shoot” on the mid-Texas coast. The last slot filled today. Meanwhile, I’ve just been getting out for short trips to photograph local birds and deer.
It was so warm this winter, I really didn’t get much done outdoors. It would be fantastic if the weather cooled just a little and we could see more ducks pushing south along the coast.
Here is a small sample of recent photos. Don’t forget to click on a photo to make it enlarge and sharpen for viewing.
The plugin that controls the photo presentation in these newsletters is not functioning correctly (glitch in the latest update from WordPress). We are working on it and hope to have things back to normal soon.
White-tailed Deer, buck in rut
The last glow of a setting sun coloring a big buck’s antlers.
Feral hog (sow) feeding in south Texas brush country.
Snow Geese and sandhill cranes roosting at the salt lakes on Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.
Gadwall in flight, winter
This duck took off at close range and I managed to clip its left wing, so some rebuilding was required for this one.
Is there room for one more. Northern shovelers and teal share a loafing log.
Male vermilion flycatcher landing in a 25 mph wind.
Northern Cardinal in flight.
Some of these bird shots were taken on overcast days with heavy winds. But, we take what we can get, especially when it’s been days between periods of sunlight.
Click on photo to enlarge and sharpen for viewing.
Whooping Crane headed to roost at sunset, Aransas NWR.
It could be you photographing endangered whooping cranes near the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge next month. I have one slot open my annual Whooping Crane Instructional Photo Tour for a lucky photographer. Contact me quickly at this website or a lditto@larryditto.com if you want to join the small group at Rockport, Texas on February 7-9.
I left home at 5:45 AM on Wednesday past in route to South Padre Island’s World Birding Center boardwalk and the Laguna Madre waterfront for some early morning bird photography. The fog was lifting as I arrived at sunrise and, in a few minutes, it was broken enough to allow shafts of sunlight to penetrate. Dozens of brown pelicans were roosting on pilings at one of the marinas, so I parked and photographed several birds.
About 45 minutes later, I moved up the street to the birding center boardwalk wherea good number of ducks were landing to bathe and drink near the boardwalk. The shooting (photography) was good until about 10:00 AM when the clouds and fog had completely cleared and the sun was turning white and hot. Here is a sample of what I got over that two and a half hour stretch:
When you click on an image, it will enlarge and sharpen for better viewing.
Brown Pelican preening.Brown Pelicans removing the droplets of fog from their feathers.Mottled Duck pair loafing in mangrove thicket.
That’s the female talking and the male with the yellow bill.
Green Heron posing on a boardwalk perch.American Wigeon drake in flight.Northern Pintail drake at takeoff.Northern Pintail drake over colored water.
When I’m photographing over or near the water, I try to get positioned where my subjects, usually birds, will swim through or fly over patches of water that are reflecting shoreline color (from trees or even manmade structures with colorful paint like the South Padre Island Convention Center) rather than sky. As you can see from the last image above, this pintail flew above just such a stretch of colored water.
Osprey on the hunt for fish.Osprey making a right turn.
When photographing birds in flight, I find that their most photogenic position will be during a turn with their back toward the camera as in the shot above.
Ospreys in flight.
This pair of ospreys caught me by surprise while I was using the 500 mm lens. There was no time to put it down and grab a second camera with the 100-400 mm lens. Hence, I lost a great opportunity for several good shots with the birds together. From now on, I’ll follow my own advice and keep the second camera with smaller lens slung over my shoulder for a quick switch when needed.
