Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Brazoria NWR: The Birds and the Bees

I thought I’d share my “best” photos from my recent trip to Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge.  The best of the best were the White-tailed Hawk photos from my January 3rd post.

The FM road to Brazoria NWR:



Stand on any of Texas's pristine coastal wetlands, and not too far in the distance you’ll see the petrochemical engines that are the backbone of our country’s consumerism.   We can’t pretend that we aren't closely intertwined with their products:



The “best” description of my birding photos is in quotes due to the very low lighting of the day, giving great birding and poor photos.  This untouched photo of a Red-tailed Hawk gives a feel for the conditions of the day:



After messing with my camera’s aperture and other settings, and the wonderful world of digital development using Photoshop Elements (I shoot Raw), things got a little better.

One of my closer encounters with an Osprey:






The best I could pull from the large number of Red-tailed Hawks I sighted that day:



A lovely Northern Pintail:



And a Northern Shoveler, not yet in full breeding plumage:



I’m never happy with my photos of Black-necked Stilts.  Their black-and-white plumage gives me fits.  But the “lean” of the second photo, and the mechanism of the “leg lift” of the third photo kind of cracked me up:





One of my childhood friends, the Loggerhead Shrike:



These three photos of Savannah Sparrows are not the greatest in the world, but I was pretty thrilled with them after spending a long time of playing hide and seek with a small, loose flock of Savannah's

This first photo shows my camera’s point focus capability; giving focus to a single small object in front of a large, complex background (I had a large number of out of focus shots as holding the lens still enough to "grab" the little birdy, and not the background, is a challenge):



And these two photos show my camera’s point focus capability within a complex setting:




And for Judy’s good dog Emma, I conclude with the warning sign from the NWR’s viewing platform:



May your day be birdy (with no bee stings)!

1 comment:

  1. The leg lift of the stilt is my most wonderfully favorite!

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