Texas Trip - Laguna Atascosa

Laguna Atascosa NWR is located on the Gulf of Mexico about 15 miles north of where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf. This 45,000 acre refuge has the greatest number of recorded bird species of any National Wildlife Refuge. It also provides habitat for the endangered ocelot and jaguarundi.

I arrived just as the sun was coming up and due to cloud cover it was virtually dark. Before I could finish attaching my camera to the tripod a Wild Turkey and a Chachalaca ran across the parking lot and green jays were flying around in the trees. I knew it was going to be a good day.

Plain Chachalaca
1/200 sec, f5.6, 400mm

The refuge has two driving loops, a lake loop and a gulf loop. I started with the lake loop and soon saw a sign for a alligator pond. I hiked out to see the alligators but was disappointed to find out that the pond was completly dry. It would be nice if they posted a sign.

I then took the longer gulf loop. This route takes you along the gulf through some very interesting landscape. I was able to see Roseate Spoonbills, White Ibis, and Redish Egret. At one point I had to stop and wait for a Tortise (Texas Tortise?). I pulled over and got out to watch the Tortise when I noticed a huge shiny black snake crossing the road. I estimated that it was around 7-8 feet long. Maybe a Texas Indigo snake.

Reddish Egret
1/400 sec, f8.0, +1 Exposure Compensation, 400mm

After finishing the gulf loop I headed back to the visitors center where they have some feeders set up. In a short period of time several bird species visited including; Chachalacas, Green Jay, White-tipped Dove and Magnolia Warbler.

Green Jay
1/200 sec, f5.6, -2/3 Exposure Compensation, ISO 1250

Texas Trip - Hazel Bazemore County Park

After driving for about 4 hours I was looking for a place to pull over and have lunch. I checked my copy of "The 500 Most Important Bird Areas" and discovered that Hazel Bazemore County Park was only a few miles away so I decided to check it out. The book states that this may be the premier hawk watching site in the country from mid-August to mid-November. Hazel Bazemore is a rather dumpy looking park that consists of a road with some pull-offs with picnic tables. It also contains a nice observation deck for observing hawks. I didn't see any hawks but I did get my first photographs of the American Redstart, Inca Dove and Northern Mockingbird.

Inca Dove

1/1000, f5.6, iso 200

Northern Mockingbird
1/125, f5.6, +2/3 exposure compensation, iso 200

Up Next -> Laguna Atascosa NWR

Texas Trip - Balcones Canyonlands NWR

On my way from Colorado Springs to Texas I passed through the north-east corner of New Mexico and took my first photos of a Great-tailed Grackle at a rest area. Other people looked at me like I was crazy taking pictures of this bird. After I made it down to southern Texas I could see why. If you are outside and look in any direction you will see one.

Great-tailed Grackle

1/320, f6.3, iso 320

My first Texas location was Balcones Canyonlands NWR near Marble Falls Texas. Balcones is a nesting area for the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo. I was hoping to see one of these species but I wasn't so lucky. I did get a good look at my first Yellow-breasted Chat.

Yellow-breasted Chat

1/400, f5.6, iso 400

Up next -> a quick stop near Corpus Christi...

Texas Trip - Lower Rio Grande Valley

Last week I took a trip down to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas. In the next series of posts I will show what I saw at each place.

Here is the list the birds and other wildlife that I saw and photographed.

(P=photo list, L=life list)

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Birds

Great-tailed Grackle (P)

Yellow-breasted Chat (P,L)

Northern Cardinal

Blue Grosbeak

Northern Mockingbird (P,L)

Inca Dove (P,L)

American Redstart (P,L)

Black-bellied Whistling Duck (P,L)

Green Jay (P,L)

Chachalaca (P,L)

Road Runner (P)

White Ibis (P,L)

Little blue Heron

White-tipped Dove (P,L)

Olive Sparrow (P,L)

Dunlin (P,L)

Ruddy Turnstone (P,L)

Roseate Spoonbill (P,L)

Tri-colored Heron (P,L)

Least Tern (P,L)

Magnolia Warbler (P,L)

Yellow Warbler

Wilson's Warbler

Black-necked Stilt (P,L)

Cattle Egret (P,L)

Clapper Rail (P,L)

Common Moorhen (P,L)

Yellow-crowned Night-heron (P,L)

Veery (P,L)

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (P,L)

Black Skimmer (P,L)

Gray Catbird (P,L)

Canada Warbler (P,L)

White-winged Dove (P,L)

Great Kiskadee (P,L)

Golden-fronted Woodpecker (P,L)

Least Grebe (P,L)

Green Kingfisher (P,L)

Canyon Towhee (P,L)

Rufous-crowned Sparrow (P,L)

Other

Texas Indigo Snake (L)

Texas Tortoise (L)

Javalina

Anole (P,L)

Ramah SWA - Part 3

You might think that this is a blog about Ramah SWA. It isn't, but i'm having a hard time staying away from Ramah. Two years ago the place was completely dried up. Last year there was water but not much wildlife. This year it is thriving.

Here is a Marbled Godwit. I was kneeling down photographing this bird with my tripod at its shortest height when it decided to fly to the other end of the puddle that it was working. With the Bogen gimbal head (see posts below) I was easily able to snap off a few shots. I wasn't expecting much, because the camera wasn't set for flight photography, but I was pleasantly surprised by this shot.

Another Marbled Godwit.



A pair of Willets.




And a Long-billed Dowitcher displaying his wingpit.

Fountain Creek Regional Park

Last Sunday I headed down to the Fountain Creek Regional Park. FCRP is a short distance south of Colorado Springs near the town of Fountain. It contains a series of small to medium size ponds and a river (Fountain Creek). FCRP attracts a lot of ducks in the winter and is know to attract warblers during migration. Due to its close proximity I have been many times. So far I have only seen Yellow-rumped, Yellow and Orange-crowned warblers, but this is Colorado so that is about all I have seen anywhere. Maybe I just can't see warblers. I have been trying out the Bogen 3421 gimbal tripod head. I was very impressed how easy it was to lock-on to small birds flying around in the canopy. I'll post another entry about the Bogen 3421 in a few days.



Here is a Audobon's Yellow-rumped Warbler. The trick is getting them to pose at eye level with a clean background.



And a female. This photo would have been improved with the use of some fill flash. This is somthing that I hope to explore this year.



A Northern Rough-winged Swallow. The Sibley book says that they are uncommon. Fountain Creek Regional Park is a good place to see these swallows.



There were still a few ducks around including this Hooded Merganser. It is difficult to photograph birds that have bright white and black markings on a sunny day. This duck allowed me to get closer than any other Hooded Merganser that I have encountered. Unfortunately most of the photos that I took had loss of detail in the whites and the blacks. This is the best photo and it also suffers from exposure problems.

Ramah SWA - Part 2

On Saturday April 26th I returned to Ramah. This turned out to be a good decision because I added 2-4 new birds to my life and photo list. Two were easily identified Plovers and 2 were Sandpipers that i'm still working on. This turned out to be the best shorebird photography experience of my life (probably because I live in Colorado and haven't taken a trip out of state since I started doing wildlife photography).

After a slow start I found myself laying in the mud surounded by plovers, sandpipers and phalaropes.

After a few minutes of photographing sandpipers I noticed this Semipalmated Plover.

Then this white plover came running by. I knew that it was either a Snowy Plover or a Piping Plover but wasn't sure which. Either way I was extremly happy because both are rare and I have never seen either reported at Ramah. It turned out to be a Snowy Plover.

Photography Note: The white around the eye in this photo is slightly over exposed. When photographing small white birds against a dark background it is important to make adjustments so that the subject is not over exposed. In this photograph I used -1 exposure compensation to compensate for this but it wasn't quite enouugh. With Canon DSLRs there are two ways to check if you have over exposed areas. The first is to enable highlight alert. The second is to check the histogram. The problem that I have is that the flashing area of the over exposed spots, when highlight alert is enabled, can be very difficult to see outside on a sunny day. This is especially true when the overexposed area is very small.