Which Pics?

My church in Pattison, Texas has an annual German Sausage Dinner the first Saturday in May (this year, that's the 2nd -- if you're in the area, it's served between 11-2, come on by!).

We always have a silent auction and I usually print and frame a couple of pictures to donate. I find that some pictures go better than others, and I'm wondering if you all could help me by suggesting any photos that you might be willing to buy (no, I'm not asking you to buy anything, but if you were, what would you choose?).

I'll probably do 3-4 shots, and I'm seriously considering the Krider hawk in the post below and possibly the Swainson's as well. I love pelicans, but they don't seem to sell well. I might pick one of Marc's Whooper pics, or a good Caracara, if I have one (I'll have to look again). If you have any you particularly like, please comment on this post and let me know.

Thanks!

Update: Here's the Caracara pic I'm thinking of...

This will need a bit of editing (there was also a vulture in the original). I find that I need to do the editing at the camera store, as I can't get the size right with my photo editing software, and it defaults to 72 dpi (yes, I can fix that, but it's a pain).

Birds of Prey on a Gloomy Day

OK, I know that I promised the whoopers, and I was trying to update my posts in the order that the photos were taken, but I'm behind, and today was a "good birding day".

The weather has been gloomy and overcast all day, but we wanted to get out of the house, so we made the "loop" down Woods Road -- our favorite birding locale. The birds were low to the ground -- sitting on fence posts. We saw this bird first. It took me a while to identify it, but I think it's a Swainson's hawk. When it flew, I could see the mostly white underside, with a dark "chest".

Almost exactly across the street on another fence post was this beautiful Krider's Red Tail Hawk. Marc finally honked the horn to get it to fly, but I missed that shot. He flew a ways down the fence-line and was there when we back-tracked, but those shots were too far and turned out blurry. This will probably be one of my Photos for the silent auction at this year's Sausage Dinner.

Around the corner on Hwy 359 we saw another of our favorite local birds -- a Crested Caracara. The bird is looking directly down at the camera -- it has a very intense glare!

Here's a close-up so you can see its face!

November Fulton Trip -- Mostly Shore Birds

I focused on the pelicans in my previous post, and I will do a special post on the Whoopers that we saw on the trip, but we see a lot of other birds, and some are really special!

Every time we go to the coast, Marc loves to feed the seagulls -- they are excitable birds. Taking shots of the feeding frenzy can produce some great vignettes, like the one below.


In Fulton, there are a lot of wetland areas, full of herons and egrets. Here is a great, reflective shot of a Great Egret. He (or she) has caught something -- I'm not sure if it's food, or just a reed and maybe lunch got away.






This pic of a Long-billed Curlew was taken from the Skimmer, Captain Tommy Moore's boat, in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Another great reflective pose. These birds are rather large, standing 23 inches. Sibley's says this bird favors drier habitats, but I guess this one is an exception.

This Ruddy Turnstone was posing for me. This is the non- breeding plumage. I have a shot of one in breeding plumage in my post of one of our first trips to Port Aransas. If you click on the link and scroll down below the Wilson's Phalerope, you will see the extreme differences in breeding and non-breeding plumage.


This little guy is a Spotted Sandpiper -- again in non- breeding plumage. (He gets spots during breeding season -- what a surprise!). This was another bird for the life-list.

Pelicans

I think of all the sea and water birds, Brown Pelicans are my favorites. They are much more colorful and prettier (IMO) than White Pelicans and a lot more interesting. They hunt from the air, diving down into the water head-first to come up with dinner. This shot was taken on our November trip (continued from below, just a few months later :-). I think it is one of the best shots I've taken -- I didn't have to do any adjustment except resizing to upload here.

This is the same bird, shortly after takeoff. I left most of this picture, including the Laughing Gull in the water, just to show you how large these birds are. And the Brown Pelican is the smallest of the Pelican species.

For contrast, here are a couple of White Pelicans. The one on the right is showing some of his wing-tip feathers, which adds a bit of contrast, but really, I think the white pelicans are rather boring, and plain. You can see, however, that they like these rocks as a perch.

To give the White Pelicans some credit -- they look really nice when they are flying. Black wingtips seem to be common on a lot of white water birds -- pelicans, cranes, ibis, storks all seem to exhibit this trait. I think these flying pelicans contrast nicely with this lovely cloud, and with the perched pelican below.

ANWR Boat Tour

Here are a couple of Pix from Aransas. More to come!


Daddy Whooper, and


Whooper Chick.
========================
So to keep some of these pictures in order, I've decided to edit this post instead of adding a new one. One thing that may not be obvious from these pictures is that Whooping cranes are really big birds. They stand five feet tall -- that's almost as tall as me!

On this last trip, we saw about 26 whooping cranes on the single trip. Captain Tommy said it was a record for him! We saw these magnificent birds really up close -- as the pictures above show. We also got to see a great little drama.

One of the adults captured a snake! I can't be sure, but I think this may be the female -- you'll notice that she's really shaking things up.

It's not too long before Junior comes over to investigate. You'll notice that the snake isn't real excited about this idea -- it's wrapped itself around a bit of brush and is hanging on for dear life!


But in the end, Mom relents and Junior has lunch!

Western Canadian Geology

As mentioned before, I'm a bit of a geology buff -- but far from being an expert. We began our two-day train trip across Western Canada on the dry side of the mountains. That will be obvious enough from these photos. I was impressed by all the outcrops, upthrusts and places where erosion shows us what lies beneath the surface.

In this picture, notice the different colors in the rock: iron and copper for sure, but there are probably others. Marc's the chemist in the family, I'm sure he could tell us more.

Here, you can see a bit of outcropping where the soil has been eroded away to show the rock beneath.


Here's another example.










Mountains are formed in a couple of different ways. These are "upthrust" mountains formed when two tectonic plates press against each other and causes "wrinkles". You can see how the rock has been pushed up at an angle.


I love this shot that shows the different types and colors of rocks exposed by the water's cutting path.

Why I love living in the country

I had a really pleasant surprise today. I was sitting out on the front porch, enjoying a really fine day when a gray fox trotted across the driveway. Of course I didn't have my camera handy (sorry). So I searched the web and found information on the Gray Fox -- with color pictures. What a really handsome animal!

Gray Fox (Desert USA)
Gray Fox - Wikipedia
Wild Animals of Crestwood -- scroll past the Red Fox, for a very nice photo

Western Canada by Train - Day 1

A portion of our trip to Canada included a two-day train trip from Vancouver to Banff. We were in a "domed" car, which means that we sat at the top of a two level car (the dining area was on the bottom). The top part of the train car was domed glass which, combined with the height, allowed for excellent views. Unfortunately, it did not necessarily make for excellent photographs.

There were several reasons for this. One was the glass -- reflective and curved. A more common reason was that we were constantly moving, and along the tracks were old telephone (or perhaps even telegraph) poles and of course trees. I took over 500 shots on this trip -- here is an example of what a lot of them looked like.

OK, I'll try not to show too many of these, though there is one more below.

If we were to count up how many birds of a given species, probably the two that would come to the top are Bald Eagles and Ospreys. (OK, and Canada Geese and probably Common Mergansers.) Along the train tracks, however, we were able to see a lot of nesting Eagles and Ospreys. Take a look at this Eagle's nest -- when you compare it to the length of the pine needles, you can get an idea of how huge it, and the bird on it, are.

This next shot is one of my most disap- pointing shots of the whole trip, and I plan to inflict it upon you, regardless. [grin] This had the potential to be a great shot, even through the telephone wires. Unfortunately, because we were moving, and I was trying so hard to take shots quickly, I used autofocus on my camera (something, I usually avoid). Well -- you can see the results with this Bald Eagle.

The Osprey is a "fish eagle" much like the Bald Eagle, though they are often listed as a separate species. I heard once on a PBS nature program that fish eagles are usually black and white. Like the Bald Eagle (ok, it's really a dark brown), the Osprey is mostly "black and white" in coloring. I especially liked this nest with all the colorful strings hanging down -- even ospreys and eagles like colorful, soft bedding for their chicks!

This next shot gives an idea of the territory we were going through. Transportation -- both trains and vehicular, travel through the lowest parts of the mountains. So you will often see a stream to your left or right. Here you get the tracks, the road and the stream all in one shot.








In my next post, I will include a lot of "geology shots" for all my rock-hound and geologist friends. But suffice to say that there are some areas in the mountains that were difficult or dangerous to put a track through, so tunnels were often necessary. Here's a spot where we had a nice curve coming up to a tunnel ahead.

All through the trip, we would travel along a stream and sometimes come to a wide spot, where there were lakes. I kept seeing these black and white birds floating in the water. It took me a while to identify them as common mergansers -- another bird for our life list.