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Scissor-tailed Flycatchers have beautiful coloring and are a huge challenge. Most of the time you see them on a post or wire and they fly off before you can even get the camera in position. It was surprising these guys let us walk around aiming the bazookas at them. Even at close distances, it is difficult to keep the long tail in focus and within the frame. They do flick the tail a lot.
Mud flats and marshes close to the coast can be tidal or rain-fed depending on the location. With the abundant rain over the last few weeks a lot of areas are overflowing and too deep for the smaller waders. After cruising around the regular locations we have found our best birding spots to be on the coast.
A welcome winter visitor along our Gulf coast is the Marbled Godwit and we found a small flock on the lawn of a beach house in Surfside. Same old problem… getting them to line up nicely so most are in focus is a challenge. At least these were spread out on the grass; the background was not as distracting.
Oh boy, this week has been so great with the overcast days and cooler temps. We have been out A LOT - the sky is like a huge diffuser and you can shoot from any direction as the birds are evenly illuminated. On Wednesday we went to the Texas City Dike and found a lot of Pelicans and … some cute little green birds.
Oh, tell me more.
We just haven’t been out much at all; alternating days of rain and sun, too many days taken up with medical and dental check ups, chores and repairs and then a trip north to my sister’s for my birthday.
Oh, not too far north, just past Ft Worth and south of Denton. They have hills up there, y’all.
Sometimes you don’t have to go far to find birds. And wildlife!
Arrgghh. We haven't had a hotter summer in ages. Day after day of brilliant blue skies, record-breaking heat and very little rain. All our favorite bird places have dried up and the few times we have ventured out, the promised cloudiness turned out to be a mirage. I know, this time last year we were recovering from Harvey and all the flooding, but this heat has been hard to take.
We found an somewhat active Reddish Egret under the Intracoastal Canal Bridge in Surfside recently. He was great fun to photograph and after looking at the results, I want to show you how different the same bird at the same time can look... from different perspectives.
These triple-digit days are too much for getting out and chasing birds. It is amazing what you can do if you let your imagination run wild….
