After a few nice days of rain, great weather is here again. Ann and I were glad to see it. We finally got to go out to the San Angelo State Park for a little birding. We found that there had been a tiny bit of run-off into the lake, as there was a little more water in some of the pools..
American Avocets
That was when we spotted the American Avocets. There were about eleven of them. Too far away for a good photograph, but we were able to spot them with our spotting scopes. The photo at left is one I got last year. The ones we saw today were all non-breeding adults, as is the one in the foreground of the picture, I believe. Along with the Avocets were two Black-necked Stilts. I love these delicate-looking little shore-birds. They look so fragile on their straw-like legs. There also were some Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, several Great Blue Herons, and a Cormorant or two.
Yellow Warbler
After looking at the shore-birds we folded our scopes and headed for the bird blind. There was not much activity for awhile, but our patience was rewarded when a Yellow Warbler flew in. I was able to get nice photograph that you can see here. I used my Canon 40D with my 100-400mm zoom lens attached to it. As I said before, it is one of my favorite lens for bird photography. With the closeness we are able to get while in the blind, usually it is not necessary to use my 500mm.
After leaving the blind, we just drove around a bit, to just enjoy being out of doors. We spotted a Greater Roadrunner in the top of a small tree near the only working boat ramp. A fisherman was unloading his gear and spooked it, so it was gone before I could get a shot.
We came back by the Prairie Dog village and noted that there were four ‘dogs’ visible. Hope they make a comeback. We then drove up that “new” old road that they recently re-opened, and spotted a Red-tailed Hawk just as he flew from the top of a tree. I got a couple of shots, but they were nothing to write home about. Ann thinks different. She is my critic, you know. Maybe you’ll be seeing one of the shots here in the future.
I am hoping to put a gallery page here to show off more of my photos. I have a link to my web-site, but I thought it may be more convenient to you readers to have a quick gallery here on the blog. Stay tuned on that…….
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Happy Birding!
Texas Tweeties by Bob Zeller 