Birding Pedernales Falls State Park

May 9, 2014 by Bob Zeller

Before I get started, I would like to remind you to click on the title of this post and you will see many more photos and the complete narrative.

We have had a really busy big week. We had plans to go to to Pedernales Falls State Park, near Johnson City, Texas. We were to leave on Tuesday. But on Monday before we were to leave, I and my neighbor Carl Williams, decided to do a little birding and photography locally. Ann stayed at home to do some laundry and other household chores. She was to regret it. Why?? Because she missed out on our best day of birding yet.

Carl and I headed to Lake Nasworthy to bird the two local parks there, Middle Concho and Spring Creek. We checked out every possible bird we saw, for a period of about four hours. We eventually saw and identified a grand total of 57 species. The biggest birding day that I have ever had. Here are a couple of photos from that day.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

The cuckoo was nearly hidden in the trees, but I managed to point that center focus point in the camera between the leaves and branches.

Vermilion Flycatcher

I love to photograph these little red flycatchers anytime I get the chance.

So, now, onto the subject of this post.

Ann and I left Tuesday morning about 8:00 and headed towards Johnson City, a distance of 177 miles, Pedernales Falls State Park being just a few miles east of there. We had room reservations at a motel in Fredericksberg, but check-in time wasn’t until 4:00 so we had plenty of time to bird the park. We arrived at the park at about 11:00 AM.

We birded the blinds there until about 3:00PM, then left for Fredericksberg about 40 miles away. After having a supper of fajitas and a cold beer at Mamacita’s Mexican Food Restaurant, we retired to our room at the Sunday House Motel. The next morning, Wednesday, we headed back to Johnson City and the state park again. We stayed there again until mid-afternoon. Pedernales Falls State Park has two bird blinds and both are very comfortable, having benches and large glass viewing windows.

During the two days, we added 6 species to our 2014 “Big Year” list,bring that total to 163, then I added 3 to my life list, which now stands at 272. Here are photos from there. Click on any of them to see enlargements.

White-eyed Vireo

House Finch

Bay-breasted Warbler taking a bath. Female, 1st year, summer

Yellow Warbler

Carolina Chickadee

Nashville Warbler

Painted Bunting

Summer Tanager

All photos were taken using my Canon EOS 70D with a Tamron 150-600mm lens mounted on a Manfrotto tripod with a Wimberley gimbal head. I was sitting on a bench inside the blinds. The glass windows, though being very clear, are slanted and that had some effect on the auto-focus and some of the images were a tiny bit fuzzy. I was able to correct that with Focus Magic software.

The three new life-list additions were a Common Ground Dove, Bay-crested Warbler, and Purple Finch.

The last “Big Year” list update I published took you to number 147. Here are the additions since then:

148 American Avocet

149 Indigo Bunting

150 Painted Bunting

151 MacGillivray’s Warbler

152 Bronzed Cowbird

153 Yellow Warbler

154 Willet

155 Stilt Sandpiper

156 Yellow-billed Cuckoo

157 Pectoral Sandpiper

158. Yellow-breasted Chat

159 Common Ground Dove

160 Bay-breasted Warbler

161 Nashville Warbler

162 Purple Finch

163 White-eyed Vireo

Images from Pedernales Falls State Park

March 17, 2013 by Bob Zeller

As I promised, here are several more bird images that I got at the blinds at Pedernales Falls State Park. I believe that spring has sprung, given that the weather was great and the birds colorful. I won’t bother with any senseless text here, but just let you enjoy the photographs. But be sure to click on the images themselves, to see some beautiful enlargements.

Carolina Wren

Lesser Goldfinch – male

Lincoln’s Sparrow

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Ladder-backed Woodpecker – female

Lesser Goldfinch – female

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

Many thanks to all that enjoy my work and offer comments. I really appreciate the notes and compliments. To see more of my work, click the Fine Art and the Flickr logos on the right side of this page.

Western Scrub-Jays at Pedernales Falls State Park

March 15, 2013 by Bob Zeller

As I mentioned in my last post, Ann and I went to Wimberley, Texas for a visit with some friends. Initially we had planned on going to the Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory in Austin, and also visiting the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center in nearby San Antonio. As it turned out, Hornsby Bend was closed because of a fire a few days ago, and Mitchell Lake turned out to be open only on weekends.

So what to do if you are served lemons, well as they say, you make lemonade. We were only a few miles from the Pedernales Falls State Park. We decided to check out the bird blinds there that I heard about from a friend. It turned out to be two blinds, each one facing the opposite direction. For photography, that was excellent, giving that the light was so that you could have your choice of sun direction.

We made two trips there, on consecutive days. I came home with 860 images of several different species. Out of those, I hope to cull out maybe a dozen or so keepers. For this post, I have picked out a few images of a Western Scrub-jay, (Aphelocoma.californica).

Western Scrub-jay

I hope you enjoyed the photos, as much as I enjoyed our little trip to get them. Incidentally, if you want to visit a picturesque little village in the hill country of Central Texas, this is the place to go. For my own taste, I still love our wide open spaces at home in San Angelo, Texas. But Wimberley has much to offer, great scenery, certainly more trees than I am used to, great little restaurants, and is closed to the attractions of Austin and San Antonio.

Click on any image to see an enlargement.