Juvenile White Ibis
I’ve sitting here at the computer, testing the “waters” with my toes. And I guess it’s time to jump in and get this blogging thing started.
This blog will be about Bird Photography and of course, that means that Birding will also be included. Birding is an essential by-product to Bird Photography.
I have been encouraged to start this by my very dear friend, Deb Tappan, of Knoxville, Tennessee. She is an excellent, outstanding photographer in her own right, but she loves my bird photography. Hence, she has been encouraging me to do a blog. Then my wife, Ann, started agreeing with her, so here I am.
Ann and I go birding several times a month. Most of our visits are to San Angelo State Park, which is only about 3 miles from our home. They have a nice bird blind, actually a little building with windows, benches, etc. But we also just like to drive around the park slowly and observe the birds and wildlife.
Another of our favorite places, are the water treatment ponds at Eldorado, Texas. That place has become a mecca for attracting rarely seen birds. In the past few weeks, I have seen two Tri-colored Herons, and one juvenile White Ibis (pictured above). Both of these species usually are found only along the Gulf Coast. Then on Labor Day, I photographed a Least Grebe, which was the first sighting ever in the Concho Valley. I have to credit Suzanne and Sid Johnson, of Eldorado, for sighting them. They, in turn, notified me so I could come do the photography.
This being sort of an introductory post, I should mention that we are from Michigan, me being from the city of Muskegon, with Ann being from a little community of Beulah, near Traverse City, Michigan. We arrived here in San Angelo, Texas with the compliments of the U. S. Air Force, in Decembe 1961. We loved the area so much we decided to make it our home. If you do the math, that makes young senior citizens. But that doesn’t slow us down.
But back to the main subject of birding. I will try to publish photos regularly. Then I hope to see and read some comments from you.
‘Till the next time, Bob Zeller
Visit my gallery at www.zellertexasphotos.com
Texas Tweeties by Bob Zeller 
Great photos Bob, and you are performing a great service to the rare species documentation effort in our Concho Valley region. I look forward to you being in the blogosphere.
Thanks, Terry,
I think this will be great fun. Thanks for the compliments. And I mention that I have been sending more photos to the TOS.
Welcome to blogging, Bob. I’m looking forward to hearing about your travels and insights.
-jim
Thanks, Jim, nice to hear from you again. Check in again. I hope to be writing regularly.
Greetings and welcome to West Texas….My husband and I both have roots here…but we had been away for many years until we retired here in 1999. We bought a home on the North Concho river, below the dam and have really good birding in our backyard. Recently, because the river is low, we had a Tri-colored Heron wading in the river. We regularly have Great Blue Herons, Black-crowned Night Herons and Green Herons….and recently have had Great Egrets roosting below our house on the river. So, come by sometime….happy birding.
Hi Sharon, thanks for writing. This blogging is new to me so I hope I do this properly. I am familiar with your neighborhood, and I believe there is a Heron rookery near there, am I right? I would most definitely love to come there and check them out and get some photographs. I’ve been here since 1961 and I had never seen Tri-colored here until this year.
Alas, the Great Blue Heron rookery is no longer viable….the initial site was done in by massive clearing during the second roosting year and then they moved “downriver” where the Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures moved in and destroyed the habitat. Last year Tom and I could only find a couple of nests and we weren’t sure that either nest site was successful. I hope they return. The vulture seems to have moved on. Although the Herons were noisy neighbors when the young were calling for food, there is something so grand about them we didn’t mind at all.
Boy, that’s a real bummer. We had been seeing several Egrets and Herons of all types, including tw0 Tri-coloreds, at O.C.Fisher. But becaus of the receding shoreline, I had use my spotting scope to ID them.