Thanksgiving Birding

Ann and I are thankful that, at our age, we can still get out and enjoy the outdoors and wildlife.  That said, we have no encumberments, no close relatives, so we are free to do as we please regardless of what the calendar says.  Besides, I wanted to play some more with my new Canon EOS 7D Mark II.  So, a few days this week, including Thanksgiving morning, we got out and did what we love to do best.  Here are a few highlights from those outings earlier this week.  Enjoy.

Osprey on Monday

Golden-fronted Woodpecker

Great Egret

Great Egret

Mr. and Mrs. Hooded Merganser

Black-crowned Night Heron

Black-crowned Night Heron

Osprey on Thanksgiving Day. He loves this spot to do his hunting.

We saw many bird species, averaging about 30-35 each day.  However, most photos were not display materiel.  Just grab shots for ID, etc.

We added one more to our 2014 Big Year list.  A Forster’s Tern a Lake Nasworthy.  We are now at 198 in our goal to get to 200 by December 31.  However, we are heading to the Davis Mountains area in two weeks so hopefully can get those two that we need out there.

Birds and warmer days…….

Since my last post the weather has gotten more seasonable here.  That means I was able to get out more without having to layer on stacks of clothing.  I am still experimenting with my new Canon 7D Mark II, and I am enjoying it more and more.  Here are a few pics from the last few days.

This Golden-fronted Woodpecker was at least 40 yards away.  I am amazed that I was able to get a photograph that was sharp enough to heavily crop the image.  I think the better processor on the Mark II is making for better image quality.

Golden-fronted Woodpecker

These titmice are one of the more difficult birds to photograph.  They flit in and out of the brush quickly, never perching anywhere for more than a few seconds.

Black-crested Titmouse

When I first saw the Warbler in the brush, I thought it may be a Nashville or a MacGillivray’s Warbler.  However, after getting home and studied it along with my various guides, I realized that was first year winter Orange-crowned Warbler.  The deciding factor was the split eye-ring, a slight whitish brow, and the streaked breast.

Orange-crowned Warbler

I almost passed up trying to get this photo of a perched Osprey.  He was at least 80 yards away.  In my viewfinder, he wasn’t much bigger than my little focus point.  But since I have been in a trial mode with my new camera I decided to give it a shot.  I steadied the camera and 150-600mm Tamron lens on my driver’s side window.  Obviously the photo is very heavily cropped but the result is excellent.

Osprey

Below is an adult female Eastern Bluebird.  It was back-lit but I was able to make Exposure Value adjustments in the camera.

female Eastern Bluebird

This Great Blue Heron was across the river.  I was hoping to get a photo of him in flight, but he wasn’t interested in moving from his perch.  I waited about ten minutes, then I drifted on, looking for other photographic opportunities.

Great Blue Heron

We stopped by the shoreline of the lake to check out the gulls.  All were Ring-billed except for one lone Herring Gull.  It left the building before I could get a decent photo.  I was trying for some in-flight and I captured this Ring-billed as it was flying directly at me.  (BTW, that Herring Gull was number 197 in our quest for 200 birds in our 2014 Big Year.  Three to go.)

Ring-billed Gull

This photo below of the slate colored Dark-eyed Junco presented me with the most challenge.  We had seen it the previous day, but was unable to get any photos.  On our return the next day, we spotted it in some dense brush.  It probably was aware of us, even though we were about 30 yards away.  We waited for it to make a move into the open, while all the time I was trying to get it in focus through the twigs and branches.  It was dark and shadowy in there and the camera bumped the ISO to 6400.  The resulting image is below.  Even with that large ISO the noise is hardly noticeable.  I didn’t use any noise-reducing software as I didn’t want to take a chance on reducing the sharpness.  Again, the photo is, like most of my photos, heavily cropped.

Dark-eyed Junco – slate colored

I hope you enjoyed my photos.  Click on any of them to see enlargements.

Baby, it’s cold outside…….

It’s so cold I saw a dog frozen to a water hydrant. 🙂

I put a bucket of hot water outside and it froze before it stopped steaming. 🙂

I was going to stay in and think up one-liners, then decided to do a post.  I noticed it has been several days since I wrote anything.  I did manage to get out and get a few snapshots.  Still getting used to my new Canon EOS 7D Mark II.

The light was all wrong for this Cormorant.  He was back-lit so I had to do some adjusting to my exposure.  Not bad.  The colors of his feathers look pretty nice.

Double-crested Cormorant showing off his colors.

The Black Vulture is always hard to get a good exposure because of the dark colors.

Black Vulture

The Meadowlarks are starting to arrive in large numbers.

Western Meadowlark

This Bewick’s Wren tried to hide from me.

Bewick’s Wren

That’s about it from me for this time.  Sorry for the short post.  I forgot to mention that I have a torn muscle in my chest.  Feels like a broken rib, but my buddy, Aleve, is helping me get through it.  I sneezed hard and that is what the doctor said caused it.  Leave it to me to get all of the weird stuff.

By the way, mark your calendars.  December 13, from 3:00 ’til 6:00PM.  At the Fort Davis Art Gallery.  They are honoring me with a reception as their featured artist as part of the Fort Davis Frontier Christmas celebration.  Stop by if you are in the area.

Well, I might build a fire in the fireplace if the smoke doesn’t freeze and plug up the chimney. 🙂

Canon EOS 7D Mark II – my first trial

I got my new Canon EOS 7D Mark II on Wednesday afternoon.  I hurriedly perused the manual to read the most important points, made my own desired settings, and inserted the time, date, and my copyright info.

Thursday  morning I was ready for the maiden run.  Ann and I took a drive out by O.C.Fisher Lake at San Angelo State Park.  Friday, we drove through our local city parks at Lake Nasworthy.  Today, Saturday, we had contemplated going to the San Angelo State Park, but found it was closed for the weekend for hunting.  So, back to the Lake Nasworthy area we went.  We didn’t stay very long, as it was getting windy and there were white caps on the lake.  What we do tomorrow, Sunday, is anyone’s guess.  We may just take to some country roads for a change.

Anyway, my first impression of the camera was Wow!!  The focusing is  instantaneous.  The shutter feels almost like it has a hair trigger.  I love the 10fps burst also. The camera feels like a good fit to my hand.  I miss the touch-screen that I had on the 70D, but I feel that with all of the other improvements, I could well do without it.  The original 7D didn’t have it either.

But I have had it for only a few days, so I am not really able to give you a complete assessment.  But I can show you some of my photos that I got with it the past few days.  Bear in mind I was testing all kinds of exposures, etc.  So I was shooting anything that got in the way of my lens.

 

White-crowned Sparrow in the grass at San Angelo SP.

female House Finch in tree.

first-year male Vermilion Flycatcher

White-tailed Deer approached my mobile blind, AKA my car.

Pied-billed Grebe

Great Blue Heron

Pied-billed Grebe in early morning light.

Pied-billed Grebe with crawdad (crawfish).

Mute Swan

So you can see that I had a lot of fun with the new gear.  Hope you like these first pictures with it.  Click on any of them to see enlargements.

 

The Bald Eagles of Llano

As a lot of people in central Texas are aware, there is has been a nesting pair of  Bald Eagles residing about seven miles outside of town annually for the last approximately eleven years or.  The traffic would get tied up frequently along the highway by people wanting to view then, so the Texas Highway Department graded an area along the road to allow parking.  It has been a popular spot through the years for bird watchers and photographers.

Earlier this year the huge nest was blown down in a storm.  Those nests are huge, weighing up to a ton, so that was quite a loss for the eagles.  So, the last report that I have, the pair have returned and are now building a new nest in the same area.  The average size of a nest is somewhere around 9 feet by 12 feet, and weighs over a ton.  By the way, the Bald Eagle usually mate for life, but if one dies, the other may look to find another mate.

I haven’t been down there for several years.  The first time was in February of 2008 when I got these photos.  I dug them out of my archives and reprocessed them.  The nest was about 300 yards from the viewing area.  I had my Canon 500mm f4 lens with a 1.4 teleconverter, making it a 700mm, and still the original images show the eagles as far in the distance.  Just a tiny spot  in the middle of the original photo.  So these pictures are drastically cropped.

I believe that the next three pictures were taken at the original nest.  First photo is the image before I cropped them.  Remember, this is how it looked through my 700mm lens.

Original view of Bald Eagle nest.

Pair of Bald Eagles on nest in early morning sun.

Bald Eagle leaving nest.

Those were the only good photos that I could make good enough to post here.

We went back in October of 2008, and they were back and had built another nest, not far from the original.  Only one bird was on the nest then.  Again here is the original, followed by the cropped version.

Original Eagle on nest

You can see in the above photo the immense size of their nest.

Bald Eagle on nest

That was the only photo that I have from that day that I considered not a throw-away.  By the way, I believe that it is this nest that was destroyed this year by the storm.

Llano is about 200 miles distant from here in San Angelo, so I don’t get down there very often.  But they are the closest opportunity that I have to see a Bald Eagle.

With my new Canon EOS 7D Mark II and my Tamron 150-600mm lens, I feel that I may get some nice images if I can get back down there.  We will see.

“It was a dark and dreary night…….”

Okay, I am trying to write a new post here.  But words are failing me.  Actually it is really a dark and drizzly day here.  Woke up to a light rain and so far at 11:00AM we have received over an inch.  Not a really good day for bird photography.  Water and camera lenses do not mix well.

So I think I will just show you a few more recent photos that I haven’t posted yet.  If you are on Facebook you may have seen them already, as I like to post there occasionally.  By the way, if you can view this post on your computer, please remember to click on the images.  You can see some great enlargements that way.

I had posted another image of this Bobcat earlier.  I originally ignored this one as I didn’t like my first impression of it.  But now, after looking at it again, it has grown on me and I really like it.

Bobcat

But that’s the way I am.  I find that sometimes I can go back through my archives and spot another picture that I didn’t like at first, then after processing it I sometimes get a nice surprise.

So here’s another from our recent trip to Fort Davis.  I usually like to really get close up to my birds, but in this image I found that I like the composition.

Female Ladder-backed Woodpecker dangling from branch of a century plant.

Another Acorn Woodpecker.  I love these guys.

Acorn Woodpecker

How about a couple more of that magnificent Snowy Egret that we saw at Balmorhea State Park.

Snowy Egret

Snowy Egret

Hey, who is this masked man. 🙂

Loggerhead Shrike

Well, I think that will be all for today.  I don’t want to use up all of my good stuff or I won’t have anything for my next post.  I hope you enjoy this one.