A new week, a new day……

April 15, 2013 by Bob Zeller

I am sitting here at my computer pondering the day, and wondering what I am going to write about. I sometimes never decide until I am actually here with my fingers on the keyboard. Ann and I had a pretty nice weekend, but now it’s time to get after it. “It” being doing something constructive.

On Friday we decided to make a birding run through our local parks in the Lake Nasworthy area. We actually came away with seeing 43 species in about three hours time. I didn’t get any photos that were in an award-winning fashion, but here are a few images from the morning.

Eared Grebe

The Eared Grebe was the first we had seen this year, and we were fortunate to do so, as they usually have all left by this date except for a few hangers-on.

Blue-winged Teal

The Blue-winged Teal was feeding pretty near the grebe, as was the Great Egret pictured below.

Great Egret

Sparrows are difficult to photograph, because of the small size and also because it is hard to catch them still enough when they are in the grass. I got lucky with this Savannah Sparrow.

Savannah Sparrow

So photographically the day wasn’t a complete waste. I have to admit, though, that sometimes I get caught up with the birding aspect, and sub-conciously forget the cameras. Then I have a ‘V-eight’ moment, slam myself in the forehead about possibly missing a great shot.

Speaking of great birding here is a list of our sightings, which included our first Bullock’s Oriole of the year.

Blue Jay 1
White-winged Dove 7
House Finch 9
Great-tailed Grackle 11
House Sparrow 5
Mourning Dove 3
Neotropic Cormorant 15
American Coot 25
Gadwall 5
Pied-billed Grebe 3
European Starling
Killdeer 1
Turkey Vulture 5
Eastern Bluebird 3
Red-winged Blackbird 7
Northern Shoveler 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 4
Bewick’s Wren 1
Northern Cardinal 5
Ash-throated Flycatcher 2
Eared Grebe 1
Blue-winged Teal
Common Grackle 7
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
Chipping Sparrow 7
Vermilion Flycatcher 2
Lark Sparrow 7
Black-bellied Whistling Duck 25
Barn Swallow 5
Great Blue Heron 4
Savannah Sparrow 3
Great Egret 1
Black-crested Titmouse
Yellow-rumped Warbler 3
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 1
Bullock’s Oriole 2
White-crowned Sparrow 3
Wild Turkey 1
Belted Kingfisher
Cinnamon Teal 1
Rock Pigeon 1
Northern Mockingbird 7

I hope you enjoyed the images. Click on any of them to see enlargements.

Eared and Pied-billed Grebes

November 22, 2011 by Bob Zeller

Since I ended up getting a nice photo of an Eared Grebe (Podiceps nigricollis) Sunday morning, I thought I would show it to you along with another type, the Pied-Billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps). An interesting thing about grebes is that they spend most of their time on the water. Because of lobes on their feet that help them to be better swimmers, they are rather ungainly trying to walk on land. They use floating nests among reeds and other growth. When preening, they eat their own feathers and feed them to their young.

Eared Grebe

Pied-billed Grebe - adult

Pied-billed Grebe - adult winter

Pied-billed Grebe - juvenile

Adult pied-bills can be identified by the dark band around the bill. Winter adults and juveniles do not have that band. Grebes are rarely seen in flight.

I hope you enjoy these photographs, and also those that you can see by clicking on the Flickr Logo on the right side of this page.

Canon EOS 7D Report

November 21, 2009 by Bob Zeller

I drove down to Eldorado today to try out my new Canon 7D. Suzanne Johnson had told us there were quite a few ducks that had arrived. This camera is amazing. I used my 500mm with a 1.4 teleconverter attached. The auto-focus was instantaneous. The 8 frames per sec was like a quiet machine gun. I was shooting at aperture priority at f5.6. These subjects in the following photos were at least 100 yards distant. They were about the size of my focus point in my view finder, so obviously I had to crop extensibly to get these close-ups. Check ’em out.