The weather Wednesday was still windy and cool. However we, Ann and I, did get out for a little bit. We took a little drive through Middle Concho Park again. This time I got images of another Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias), and an Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis). The heron was on the other side of the river. I maneuvered the car down near the bank so I could shoot it from my drivers’ side window. I rested my Canon 7D with 1.4 tele-converter on the Puffin’ Pad on the sill. Even with the wind, it was still a stable platform. Exposed at 1/1250 sec. @ f7.1, ISO 250.
Great Blue Heron in tree
Also, along the river we spotted an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus), flying overhead. I grabbed my other Canon EOS 76 with a Canon 100-400mm lens attached, hopped from the car to see if I could get an inflight shot. This is the result. The bird was pretty high up and back-lit so I had to crop it extensively to produce this photo. Not the best image, but I wanted to show it to you anyway. Exposure 1/2000 sec @ f5.6, ISO 100.
Osprey in flight
Later, as we were driving through some of the roads in the park we saw this Eastern Bluebird in a tree off to the left. It was in the shade, making exposure a little difficult. I used the same set-up as I did with the heron. Exposed at 1/640 sec. @f5.6 +0.3EV, ISO 200.
So all in all, the trip wasn’t wasted. The weather is starting to heat up again over the weekend so hopefully it will be a more comfortable time to get out to get some more photographs. For these, click on any of them to see an enlargement.
Texas Tweeties by Bob Zeller 