Recent Odds and Ends…..

The weather is continuing to be warm, read very warm, and the birds continue to be stressed and they keep to themselves hidden somewhere in the trees and landscape.  However, that doesn’t stop Ann and I from getting out a couple of hours each morning.  Although not getting many images, I have lucked out and got a few nice ones.  Here is a collection, mostly from the past several months that I believe that I may not have ever posted here.  Some may be even older.  My Facebook readers will probably recognize many of them.  If you can, PLEASE view this on a computer.  That way if you click on any image, you can see some very beautiful enlargements.

This Painted Bunting we found at an old mudhole that was on the verge of drying up.  If I were to go there this morning, I am sure it would be dry.  Anyway, I think this is one of my favorite photos of this bird, and I think it is a great start to this blog post.

Painted Bunting

This Greater Roadrunner that I photographed yesterday at San Angelo State Park ranks as one of my best of that species.  I love the way the light enhanced the various colors of the feathers.

Greater Roadrunner

Since I have been spending more time in the house, I have been at the computer going through images from the past few months, that I hadn’t edited or sorted.  This Pyrrhuloxia was photographed in the early morning light of July 21 of this year.

Pyrrhuloxia

We came across this Greater Roadrunner one day at San Angelo State Park.  He was so close to me that I opted to get a portrait of him.  I found it quite interesting.

Greater Roadrunner

I never pass up a chance to photograph these tiny Vermilion Flycatchers

Vermilion Flycatcher

In the birding community, the females don’t usually get their due.  The female Grosbeak, in my opinion is a beautiful bird as you might agree.

Blue Grosbeak – female

One of the cutest birds that I know of, is the Black-crested Titmouse.  But they also are very feisty and you don’t like to be messed with.

Black-crested Titmouse

At the Hummer House down near Christoval, Texas I as enjoying photographing the many, many hummgbirds there.  I thought this image moved the cute meter up a notch.

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Of all of my Great Horned Owl photos, I rank this image as one of my personal favorites.  I try to photograph this species at every opportunity.

Great Horned Owl

This photo would fool you.  As a juvenile Curve-billed Thrasher, it has neither the curved bill nor the orange eye of the adult.

Curve-billed Thrasher – juvenile

Another bird that is difficult photograph is the Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  To happen to catch one with the red crown showing is a bonus.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Another one with the same degree of difficulty is the cute little Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

When I was much younger and not at all interested in birds of any kind, I used to think that all the little ones were sparrows.  The medium size up was all pigeons.  The really big birds. think large and XX large, were all eagles.  Then the ones on water were all ducks.   But now that I am getting more educated in the avian species, boy, am I ever getting surprised.   I have found that there are over fifty different species of sparrows alone. Wow! Holey-moly, Batgirl!!  Who’da thought!  Well, this Grasshopper Sparrow is one of the more unusual ones.

Grasshsopper Sparrow

I think that will be all for this post.  I hope you have enjoyed reading and seeing the photographs.

’til next time,

Happy Birding!!!

Ruby-crowned Kinglet and friends

I am waiting for the spring migration to begin, as are many birders.  It is that time of year when we start getting some new birds moving, either through, or arriving here for the summer.  We all need the excitement to forget about all of the winter doldrums.

Having said that, perhaps I am a bit over-anxious.  After all, this is still mid-March so it will be a couple of weeks or more until it gets exciting.  So, I just go out and look for excitement.  This time, it was in the form of three Ruby-crowned Kinglets that Ann and I spotted on Monday.  It is always fun trying to photograph these tiny birds.  Rarely sitting still, and flitting from one branch to a nearby twig or fence.  So, it was a a bonus when one of them starting to show it’s red crown.  I got several images, but it took me about seventy attempts and I came away with only about four usable photos.  Here are two of the best.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

A few days earlier, we had received several thunderstorms so the local parks were pretty well saturated.  Not wanting to spend time driving through the mud, we opted to go to San Angelo State Park. We checked into the blind to see what was hanging out.  I really don’t like the blind when the sun is bright, as there is a problem with harsh shadows.  However, I figured it was better to get poor shots than no shots at all.  I was able to correct the light in the following photos.  Not too bad, after all.

Northern Bobwhite

Curve-billed Thrasher

Pyrrhuloxia

This photo of the Fox Sparrow is not up to my standards, with the grass being a distraction, but this was the first time I ever had the opportunity to photograph one.  It is uncommon here, and was only visible for a few short minutes.

Fox Sparrow

We left the blind for a quick drive around the area.  Pickin’s were a little slim.  I guess the birds had not fully recovered from the storms.  We did come across this pretty Black-throated Sparrow.

Black-throated Sparrow

I got lucky with catching this Yellow-rumped Warbler on the wing.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

That ended our day at San Angelo State Park.  I hope to get back out in the next few days and have better hunting.  Until then, Happy Birding!!

Quiz results are in…..

What a fun quiz that was.  Click here to see the original post. The photo is, of course, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  It is identified from the Orange-crowned Warbler by the two white wing bars, one of them is usually concealed.  The eye, instead of being barred like the OCW, just has very pale crescents in front of and behind the eye.  The ruby crown can be seen only part of the time, depending on the mood of the bird.  The female has no ruby crown.

The Orange-crowned Warbler is rather plain, dull and unmarked.  Kind of a flat oliveish/green.  The most distinctive part is the bit of yellow under the tail.  But it does have a bar thru the eye that you should look for.

Initially, the Orange-crowned Warbler obtained a prompt 25 votes, making me go back to the guides and see if I had made a monstrous mistake.  But soon, people starting taking a closer look at the guides and the Ruby-crowned Kinglet got 49 correct votes, and the warbler with 36.

There were a five people who were obviously not birders, but enjoyed the quiz just the same.  And I am glad that they did, and hope they will participate in some future quizzes.  They are the ones that failed to see that the Red-topped Titmouse is fictional, and a figment of my own imagination.

Of course, this was not a contest.  Only a fun quiz to test your knowledge.  I will try to come up with another one soon.  I thank everybody for participating.  For my identifications, I usually consult the Stokes Field Guide to Birds of North America.

Going back to the Big Bend……

I am going to be brief with this post.  Again, Ann and I are leaving tomorrow morning to spend a week down in the Big Bend National Park area.  Migration is beginning and we hope to come home with some nice new photos from the area.

Here are a couple of images from the past few days.  Hope you enjoy.  Just click on any of them to see some enlargements.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher – first one of the season

Wilson’s Snipe

Golden-fronted Woodpecker

Ash-throated Woodpecker

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

We will be staying at the Casitas of the Far Flung Outdoor Center in Terlingua.  If you are in the area, stop by cabin #12 and visit.  Otherwise, we will be back next weekend with new photos and maybe some stories to tell.

About those Ruby-crowned Kinglets

It has been a long time since I have written about the Ruby-crowned Kinglets.  I tried to see some yesterday morning but they were not to be found.  So I am going to write about them anyway.  These photos were taken about a year ago, and I took them from my archives.  They are tiny birds.  They flit around in thick underbrush.  They think they can hide from my long lens.  To actually get the images showing the ruby colored spot on the head of the male was a bonus.  It is usually concealed.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

In actuality, I was only about 25 feet away from him, sitting in my car/blind.   At the Cottonwood Campground in Big Bend National Park there is an area along the boundary of the area where there is fence that is partly obscured by thick vines and brush.  I brought my car close and drove very, very slowly at a silent idling speed along the area.  I was constantly looking into the brush with my binoculars.

We finally noticed a lot activity in the dense foliage.  We stopped and silently watched the kinglets and some other sparrow types hassling  each other.  I had my Canon EOS 7D with a 100-400mm zoom lens at the ready.  I spotted one kinglet throught the viewfinder and tracked him through branches, trying to catch him at a brief stop.  That is the only way one is going to get a photograph.  To make it easier, I set the focus so I was using only one center focus point.  Otherwise, the lens goes wild trying to get the bird in focus between the vines and twigs.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Enjoy the photos and click on any of them to see enlargements.

On the subject of birding, Ann and I are on a quest to see at least 210 birds this year.  Our previous annual record is 194 and we feel that if we stay alert we can get to our new goal.  We are off to a good start.  Here is our list for the first four days of the new year.  I will update you as we go. 41 is our current total.

1. Mute Swan
2. Gadwell
3. American Wigeon
4. Mallard
5. Northern Shoveler
6. Redhead
7. Ring-necked Duck
8. Lesser Scaup
9. Bufflehead
10. Hooded Merganser
11. Pied-billed Grebe
12. Eared Grebe
13. Double-crested Cormorant
14. Great Blue Heron
15. Great Egret
16. Black Vulture
17. Osprey
18. Red-tailed Hawk
19. American Coot
20. Killdeer
21. Ring-billed Gull
22. White-winged Dove
23. Great-horned Owl
24. Golden-fronted Woodpecker
25. Ladder-backed Woodpecker
26. Eastern Phoebe
27. Vermilion Flycatcher
28. Black-crested Titmouse
29. Eastern Bluebird
30. Western Bluebird
31. Northern Mockingbird
32. Curve-billed Thrasher
33. European Starling
34. Yellow-rumped Warbler
35. White-crowned Sparrow
36. Northern Cardinal
37. Western Meadowlark
38. Common Grackle
39. Great-tailed Grackle
40. House Finch
41. House Sparrow

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Airport

Boy, I bet you’re curious after that title, ain’t ya?  Well, I just gotta get your attention, one way or another.

First, I have a few new images to show you.  Several birds and more, and some of them even co-operated this morning.

Red-tailed Hawk in tree

This Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) was across the river about 200 yards away.  I didn’t think I had a prayer of getting a usable photo, but as you can see, I was wrong.  I pulled my vehicle close to the river bank and turned off the engine.  Any small vibration can throw the focus off on long shots.  I used my 500mm lens with a 1.4 tele-converter on my Canon EOS 7d for the shot.  I steadied the set-up on my side window and made the shot.  The image was severely cropped.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

We also spotted this Ruby-crowned Kinglet, (Regulus calendula).  He was more in the open than the one that I photographed a few days ago.  Today he was in a ‘leaf-less tree’, one that lost it’s leaves for the winter.  Pretty high off of the ground, but still made a decent photograph.

Wilson’s Snipe

Later as we crept along a shallow area, inches from the edge, I spotted this Wilson’s Snipe, (Gallinaga delicata), laying at the edge of the water.  He sensed our presence and froze in position, thinking, and rightly so, that he was camoflaged enough to make himself invisible.  He was only about 7 inches long and was very difficult to spot.  A cute little fellow.

C-17 Globemaster III

During our birding tour a fairly large bird, was making practice approaches to the nearby Mathis Field airport.  It turned out to be a C-117 Globemaster III, (Aeroplanus gigantus), one of the largest aircraft in the United State Air Force inventory.  I decided to see if I could get a meaningful photograph of it.  We decided to head to the airport to see what I could come up with.  I stationed ourselves near a ditch at the end of the runway, on Knickerbocker Road.  I wanted to get the aircraft just as it went directly overhead, just before it touched down.  Wow!!  What an experience.  In the viewfinder, it looked like it was right on me.  I stayed with it and fired off a sequence of photos.  Then I ducked!!  Of course, it was probably only 50 feet over my head, but it certainly felt closer.  I hope you like the image.  I like the way the camera exposed the clouds behind the plane and darkened the sky above.

Click on any image to see an enlargement.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet – a merry chase

Well, I won’t say that I actually chased it.  I don’t “chase” birds in the true sense of the word, as I don’t like to hassle them.  Perhaps, in this instance, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula), was actually harrassing me.  He sure was being evasive.  This was one time that I really felt I worked hard for the results that I got.

I had pulled my vehicle up close to some dense brush as I had seen movement in there.  With my binoculars I could see him flitting around and stopping for a second or two on different twigs.  At that point I was about 15 feet away from him.  After several exposures, mostly on manual focus, because the surrounding leave and twigs were making it difficult to use auto-focus, I decided to chance slowly getting out of the car and moving closer.

I moved ever so slowly and eventually I was on my knees on the ground and I was only about 7 feet away.  The end of my 100-400mm zoom lens was nearly touching the branches of the bush.  I took several shots, then backed away.  The kinglet gradually made it towards me, outside of the brush and near a wire fence.  Here are the photos in the order that I shot them.  These are just 4 out of about 60 exposures.  I hope you like them.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

As you can see, I got lucky again, being able to catch the red patch that usually is nearly invisible.  The more I practice the luckier I get. Click on any image to see an enlargement.

Images from a beautiful day……

We have had some very beautiful weather the past few days.  It is a very nice respite from the cold days that we had previously.  Ann and I got out to do a little birding, and I got some new photographs.  That was a bonus, as I hate to come home from birding empty-handed.

First up, I got very lucky getting this photo of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  It was in some thick brush along a fence at Spring Creek Park here in San Angelo.  We were in the car and maneuvered close to the fence, about 15 feet away.  We saw the bird in there, flitting around, and eventually it exposed itself long enough that I was able to get a few images.  If you look close, you can see the tiny red crown, that is usually concealed.  I hand held my Canon EOS 7D with a 100-400mm lens for the shot.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Along the way, we saw several Yellow-rumped Warblers on the ground and in the trees.  This is another tiny bird that moves quickly and is hard to photograph.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Another bird that we usually see on almost every visit to the lake parks, is the Great Egret.  This image was really under-exposed, so I decided to not correct it, but to just adjust the lighting of the egret itself.  It now appears like it is wading in moonlit waters.

Great Egret

We also saw this Ladder-backed Woodpecker working away in a mesquite tree.

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

Lastly, how could I not show this image of one of my favorite subjects, the Vermilion Flycatcher.  The wind was up a bit, and he seemed to be enjoying the swaying of the small tree branch.  I also like that I was able to get a catch-light in the eye.

Vermilion Flycatcher

I hope that you enjoyed these photographs.  Click on any of them to see an enlargement.  To see more of my images, click on the “Fine Art” logo in the left side of this page.  There I have some galleries for you to browse.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

It was about nearly 70 years ago when I got my first camera.  I was just a kid, obviously, but it was a thrill to get it.  It was a little Brownie Hawkeye if I remember correctly.  A little box camera with a tiny window on top that you look down on to see the image you want to shoot.  My folks liked to take Sunday drives around the western part of Michigan.  I think one of my memories was to drive, (my parents did the driving), up along the Muskegon River.  It was always great scenery, and I loved to visit the different dams upstream.  But anyway, I always had my little Brownie with me.

Later on, I moved up a bit to one with an actual viewfinder.  I think it was an Ansco.  I forget what size film it used, but I don’t think it was 35mm.  I think it was some kind of roll film.  Later on when I was in the military and stationed in Turkey, near Istanbul, was I able to get my first 35mm camera.  It was a German-made Kodak Retina 3S, a rangefinder type,  that I bought in the Base Exchange.  It had interchangeable lenses, a standard 50mm, an 85mm and a 135mm.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

But to get along with story, there is no way that I could photograph birds the way I do today with any of that equipment.  Today I use state-of-the-art, top of the line Canon equipment.  For the photograph of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, (Regulus calendula, I used a Canon EOS 7D, Canon 500mm f4 lens with a 1.4 tele-converter.  The bird was tiny, about 4 1/2 inches,  approximately 20 feet away.  Using spot metering and only the center focusing point, I was able to nail the shot of the bird among the tree branches.  Exposure was 1/500 sec. @ f5.6 at an ISO of 100.  That set-up is rather heavy so I made the shot from the window of my car, using a Puffin’ Pad window support.

The image was taken in March of this year.  Since then, the Puffin’ Pad wore out from the weight of my equipment.  I now, with an idea from (click) Ron Dudley, use a Noodle.  That is one of those swim flotation thingees.  They come in length of about 4 feet.  Just cut it to size, slit it down the middle, and it fits over your partially opened window glass.

Say, before I forget, please remember to vote in the current (click) Bird ID.

Click on the image to see an enlargement.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

It has been a pretty week and week-end.  Now I can relax for a few days.  Over the past three days there was the annual Stribling Art Extravaganza, an art show and sale.  I had entered two framed images, as I do every year.  On Sunday I made my usual trip down at 4:00PM to pick up my un-sold work.  Voila!  I discovered that both pieces had been sold.  What a nice surprise.  In previous shows, I had sold only one, or none at all.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

The local parks were very busy with campers, hikers, etc.  Spring breaks are finishing up, I guess.  We did take a short drive, though, and I got a few images but most weren’t anything to write home about.  I got this shot of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula) on Friday.  It beats by far, one that I had gotten a week or so earlier.  They are so difficult to photograph.  First of all, they are tiny and hard to see.  After you locate one, then it is hard to focus on it because they are constantly on the move, hopping from one branch to another.

On Saturday morning, Gene and Ethel Berger, who are dear friends of ours, asked us to stop by their lake house out at Lake Nasworthy.  They wanted to show us their beds of Texas Bluebonnets.  They were spectacular as this

Texas Bluebonnets

photograph shows.  Maybe I can get out this week and get more photos of some before they bloom out.  It is the state wildflower and they are blooming profusely now around the area.  This photograph, by the way, was taken on Sunday morning.  I had taken a few on Saturday, but wasn’t satisfied with the results and so I decided to sneak back there for another attempt.

This week promises to be another busy one.  I have been putting off some errands and chores, so I must get caught up.  The car needs washing since the rains are all over for awhile, and I need to do some trimming around the bird blind at San Angelo State Park.  I am going to lead a birding trip for the Abilene Audubon Society on Saturday morning.  They are going to be traveling 90 miles to get here so I feel I better give them a good show.  It should be fun, although I think that all of them are a much better birder than I am.  I am hoping to learn from them.

Texas Bluebonnet

So have a great week, everyone.  Click on any of the photos to see an enlargement of each.