Northern Bobwhite and more……..

Since my last post on June 1, my time in the field has been limited.  I have been trying to catch up on personal issues pertaining to keeping up our yard, a little house cleaning, and this morning a plumber is coming to install new fixtures in our bathroom.  So, I was only able to get out for two hours on June 2, and a couple of hours yesterday, June 7.

But the good news is, I did manage to get a few nice images to share with you.

For anybody that has been concerned about the scarceness of the Northern Bobwhite, I can assure you they are certainly alive and well in San Angelo State Park.  While driving through the entire area we were never out of earshot of at least one of them calling.  We also saw visually about ten of them, perhaps more.

Northern Bobwhite

Northern Bobwhite

Northern Bobwhite

Male and female Northern Bobwhite

Although we enjoyed seeing so many of the bobwhites, we didn’t ignore  the other birds.  As a matter of fact, we observed thirty different species.

Ash-throated Flycatcher

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get useable photos of all thirty, but that is to be expected when I am in the birding mode, versus just out for the photography.  Some we just saw as they flew nearby, or were in thick brush, or I simply just didn’t like my photo.

We spotted this night heron in the draw behind the Walmart super-center.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Well, that is about it for this time.  Hopefully, I can have more for you the next time.  Click on any photo to see enlargements.

Good day for birding on Friday

I had gotten an e-mail from a friend, saying that he had seen some Mississippi Kites along the Concho River downtown.  So after eating an early breakfast at Stango’s in town, we decided to prowl along the river to see if we could see one of the kites.  We got more than we expected.

First of all, we spotted a Coopers’s Hawk across the river.  I almost missed him as he was partly hidden from branches, but enough of him showed up in the early morning light.  Although a long way across, I tried to get him in my viewfinder and snapped of a few shots.  Fortuntely I was using my new Tamron 150-600mm lens.  I was at the extreme end at 600mm, and this is the result I got.

Cooper’s Hawk

We saw a Green Heron fly by us and settle down by the water, so we followed it and stopped along the road.  I got out of the car and walked closer to the shore.  It was across the water about 100 yards away.  Again, the Tamron lens came through for me.

Green Heron

We saw a couple of Great Blue Herons, but I didn’t like the images.  They were too contrasty in the light.  Oh yes, we did see a couple of Mississippi Kites, but they were too far away, even for my long lens.

We then decided to head to Spring Creek Park, where we had previously seen the Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.  They had decided to fly elsewhere, but we saw another Eastern Phoebe.

Eastern Phoebe

Then we came across another bird, that we thought was another phoebe.  I took several photos of it, and only after we got home and I was able to enlarge the image for a closer look, did I discover it was an Eastern Wood Pewee.  You can see the similarities.

Eastern Wood Pewee

After that we drove down near where the river gets wider.  Ann saw this larger heron type bird fly across us and land near the the opposite shore.  At first, I thought it was another Great Blue Heron, when it flew over the car.  An illusion of course, as it turned out to be a smaller juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron.  Unfortunately, it was right next to a piece of trash, and it wasn’t going to walk around it.  Neither could I figure out how to remove such a large portion of the photo, so I just decided to leave it as.

1st year Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Leaving that park, we headed over to Middle Concho Park, actually just on the other side of the river.  There wasn’t much going on there, except this little Black-crested Titmouse in a small tree.

Black-crested Titmouse

We will be going out this weekend for more fun and birding so stay tuned for whatever we may come across.  Click on any image to see enlargements.

Tale of two herons…

On Friday, to get out of the house for a change we headed to Spring Creek Park.  Again, still now much in the way of birding.  However, I got this photo of a Great Blue Heron hunting in the water.

Great Blue Heron

Then this morning as Ann and I were leaving McDonalds Restaurant after breakfast, this Yellow-crowned Night Heron was along the nearby creek.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

It pays to always have a camera handy.  Click on either photo to see an enlargement.

Ten Minutes at K-Mart Creek

It didn’t take long.  We had been observing a Yellow-crowned Night Heron near our local K-mart Creek, so named of the little drainage creek that usually flows by an empty K-mart building.  I, like Lisa Rest up in Chicago, Illinois, always have my camera with me.  Check her blog to see her amazing shots from the Windy City.

We hadn’t had time to stop on the previous sightings, so we decided to make a special trip, specifically to see if we could spot that bird.  We saw it immediately as we drove on to the parking lot.  I managed to get the two pictures that are below, then as we were about to leave, Ann spotted a Green Heron in an honey mesquite tree by the water.  It was obscured partly by foliage, but I have always maintained that if you can see enough of the eyes, get them in sharp focus, you can get a nice picture.

I hope you enjoy all of the photos.  Click on any of them to see an enlargement.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Green Heron in tree

More Spring Surprises

Tuesday afternoon, I got a call from my good friend Carl Williams.  He lives just a few houses down the street me.  He informed me that he had driven by our now familiar “K-Mart Creek”.  It is so named by the bar ditch that runs by an empty K-Mart store about four blocks from us.  He told that there was a Yellow-crowned Night Heron wandering about the place.

I high-tailed it down the street to get a good look.  The Yellow-crowned Night Heron, (Nyctanassa violacea), is somewhat of a rarity around these parts, so I was anxious to have a look and maybe get a few photographs.  Have I told you that I always have my camera with me?  

At first, I only saw the bird as he was facing away from me.  I was on the store parking lot at the time and was able to aim my 500m lens and 1.4 teleconverter out the drivers side window and get this shot.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

After getting this shot, I decided to try to get around for a frontal view.  I took my camera with the 100-400mm lens attached and proceeded to cross the little bridge, giving the bird a wide berth so he wouldn’t spook.  By then he had moved closer to the bridge, and by being very quiet, I was able to get the shot below from there.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

But the surprises weren’t over.  I got back in the car, drove a few yards and discovered a Wilson’s Snipe, (Gallinago delicata), poking around in the water under a large tree.  I had to settle on trying to aim my 500mm lens (again with the 1.4 tele-converter) between some tree branches to get the shot.  By using only the center focusing point, the job isn’t too tough.  Below is one of several images that I was able to get.  These little guys are quite the cuties.

Wilson’s Snipe

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A new day, more birds

After spend a few listless days with not many birds to show, Ann and I finally had an enjoyable morning today.  After breakfast, she, on the spur of the moment, said that we ought to make a run out by the Middle Concho Park to see if things had changed.

The morning was much cooler and I guess that made the difference as we saw a total of 29 species.  I even got a few more images to share.

juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron

We first saw the juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron across the river.  I maneuvered my Ford Edge close to the water so I could rest my big 500mm lens on my Noodle for the shot.

Next, down the little road a bit, I spotted the bright red Vermilion Flycatcher in a tree.  I started to move in with my car to a more comfortable position, but the bird moved.  So began a merry chase for about 15 minutes before I was successful in getting the shot.  I must mention that I didn’t actually “chase”, as in hassling the bird.  I guess “follow” is a better word for it.

Vermilion Flycatcher

After seeing what we could in that park, we decided to try Spring Creek Park while we were in the area.  We saw a two or three Yellow Warblers, but had no opportunity to get a photo.  Coming upon a shoal that was uncovered by the lowering water level, we saw a Spotted Sandpiper and a Green Heron.  Both gave me good photo opportunities, although they were pretty far from the bank.

I got my tripod out and set it up closer to the bank.  It was a shady area and I was confident that I wouldn’t disturb the birds as we were somewhat hidden in the low light the trees provided.  These photos are indeed a credit to my state of the art equipment.  Well, maybe I helped a little, too.  But I am proud of the images that I got after doing some tight cropping.

Spotted Sandpiper

Green Heron

Well, I hope you enjoyed these images as much as I enjoy getting them for you.  It appears that things are looking up a bit, and maybe we will get a few more migrant birds arriving in the near future.

Monday Photo Ops

We decided to take a drive out to the parks around Lake Nasworthy this morning.  We needed to see the lake level dropping inch by inch.  As we drove around Middle Concho Park we again saw a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night Heron across the river from us.  From about 100 yards I tried to get pictures of him feeding along the shore.  He caught something and it looked like a lobster.  He managed to swallow most of it, but he still had the claw to finish off.   Of course, there are no lobster within a thousand miles of us, so I guess it is a large crawdad.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron with crawfish claw.

We watched him a bit more, then continued our drive.  Again, not much was stirring until I rounded a little bend and saw a flash of red in front of me.  Into a  bush it flew.  I grabbed the binoculars and realized that it was a Vermilion Flycatcher.  It flitted among the branches and finally I was able to get my viewfinder on it and snap this picture.  Not one to write home about, or frame for the art gallery, but acceptable.

Vermilion Flycatcher

So ends another day in the field.  I hope you enjoyed the results.  Click on either image to see an enlargement.

A few random shots from the week

I didn’t get many really earth-shaking photos this recent week.  However, it was just as much fun, as usual, just to get out, communicate with nature, and see what might turn up.  But I can show you a few highlights.

Earlier in the week I went to check on the nest of Yellow-crowned Night Herons.  They were in the act of fledging, leaving the nest.  This photo is what you might call the class of 2012 picture.  As for most of those pictures that I had obtained, the lighting was difficult.  But thankful for a little fill-flash and post editing I managed to get an acceptable image.

fledged Yellow-crowned Night Herons
Class of ’12

I went back a few hours later and the birds were away from the nest completely.  I searched the big trees and found that they were scattered among the branches.  I also discovered another previously unseen nest, containing some more newborn.  I will leave it alone as it is far too high in the way and deep in the foliage to attempt any photograph.

Common Nighthawk

From there we went out by Twin Buttes Reservoir.  We hadn’t been out there in quite some time as, because like O. C. Fisher Reservoir, the water was pretty scarce.  As we drove through the area, we spotted this Common Nighthawk perched in a shady spot on a tree limb.

In mid-week we decided to make a run through Spring Creek and Middle Concho Parks.  Again nothing that was outstanding, but we happened to be there later in the heat of the day.  We’re talking nearly 100 degrees and the birds were smarter than us.  However, I photographed this Green Heron feeding in a small inlet of the river.  He was so unaware that I was able to nearly fill the frame with this shot.  I barely needed to do any cropping.  I was only about 35 feet away, shooting from my car window.

Green Heron

On Thursday, the day began with cloudy skies, cooler with a possibility of showers.  We had planned on making a trip to Eden, Texas, about 40 miles to our southeast.  We had read about a man that took it upon himself to beautify some land and build what he calls, a butterfly garden.  It was beautiful, full of all kinds of blooming shrubs, cacti and numerous tiny pools.  It should have been a natural haven teeming with birds, but by the time we arrived the weather had really cooled, and light rain was coming down.

We decided that we didn’t want to spend too much time there, but planned on returning at a later date.  We decided that there was time to make a run across to Eldorado, a distance of about 70 miles to the water treatment ponds there.  There is always something to see there.  The weather had cleared in that area, but it was very, very windy.  The large ponds of water actually had whitecaps on them.  Most of the water fowl was making use of the protection of the lee of the banks.  But we did catch sight of a couple of Redheads in open water.  I got this shot of one about 200 feet away.  It could have been a bit better if I would have had time to re-adjust my shutter speed for the action.  I really had to do a bunch of tweaking in my post editing to produce this image.

Redhead

So we will wait and see what next week will bring, but I hope everyone enjoyed seeing these photographs.  You may click on any image to see an enlargement.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron Chicks

You may remember back on May 23, I posted about the nesting of Yellow-Crowned Night Herons.  Click here to see that post.  Here is what the chicks look like today.  How soon they grow up. 🙂

Yellow-crowned Night Heron with chicks. I believe that they are about to fledge.

I shot this with my Canon EOS 7D and Canon 100-400mm lens.  Exposure was 1/250 @ f9 at ISO 400.  Fill flash was used because of the dense shade in the tree.  There were actually four chicks.  The one on the right has his beak in his feathers as if he is preening.  A fourth, is out of the picture, standing on a twig to the left.  Click on the image to see an enlargement.

Nesting Yellow-crowned Night Herons

A few days ago I mentioned that I had found a nest of Yellow-crowned Night Herons, (Nyctanassa violacea), in a residential neighborhood near here.  We went there and I was able to capture a few pictures.  The first one shows the mother on the nest.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron – adult on nest

In this second photo, if you look closely, you can see the tiny chicks peeking through the twigs.  Click the photos to enlarge.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron – adult on nest

The nest was about 20 feet off of the ground and I was about another 30 feet away, so I was photographing at an upward angle.  Hopefully, in a few days the chicks will be larger so I can get better photos of them.  They generally fledge in about 3-4 weeks and I assume that these chicks were probably about a week old.

Note:  Still time to vote in this week’s quiz.  Click here  BIRDQUIZ