Birding Photography - Texas Birds

I took hundreds of photographs of birds while we were in Texas.  Many got deleted immediately, but I still have a lot!  As you can imagine, that made it quite hard to choose which ones to share.  Besides that, it's getting busy here in Pennsylvania with migrants arriving, so taking time to blog has been low priority!  It's raining today, so here goes...

Many people like to hear the 'numbers'.  On our Texas trip, we had a count of 105 kinds of birds, including 33 that were not previously on my life list. 

Male (above) and female (below) Summer Tanager

I have a spreadsheet on my computer with a list of 10,517 birds of the world, which now has 322 birds marked on it that I have seen.  Only 10,195 to go!  

It's fun to read thru the list of names of birds from around the world... I had to laugh when I saw "Go-away Birds" from Africa.  And in scrolling down thru the whole list, I found two common birds I had not previously marked-- Northern Cardinal and American Robin!

Okay, now that I have the 'numbers' out of the way, I can get on with the subject of today's post - birding photography and choices to make while birding. 

You see a bird... do you grab first for your binoculars or camera?  

For me, the quick answer would be my binoculars.  Especially in Texas, with so many new birds, I wanted to try to get a good look at the bird before I tried to get a photo.  But because I didn't know a lot of the birds (especially the waterbirds), it was also important for me to take photos so I could study them later.  See what I mean?

Usually after a good look with the binoculars, I try to document the sighting with some photos.  They may be very bad photos... but when it's a life bird, a bad photo is better than none (especially to confirm the ID).  Such was the case with the Crested Caracara.  

My husband spotted it along a rural road while he was driving and pulled over.  It was on his side of the car, so I was photographing it from inside the car, thru a bunch of weeds and a barbed-wire fence!  But, you can tell it's a Crested Caracara... also known as a Mexican Eagle.  'Check' on the list!  And, most importantly, we both got a good look at him while he was on the ground and in the air after he took off.

Another 'drive-by' shot was this Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, which we saw while taking the tram tour at the Houston Space Center (yes, we did do a little sight-seeing, not just birding... though of course we were always watching for birds!)  Bird photography from moving vehicles is 'iffy' at best!

If it's a bird I've seen many times before, I may just grab for my camera.  Such was the case with the Great-blue Heron in the next photo.  Besides, it was right alongside the car on the road in the Anahauc National Wildlife Refuge, so binoculars weren't necessary.

But... who's that in the background?

A pretty Purple Gallinule!  Not a new bird on my life list, but very nice to see up close.  That photo shows one of the challenges in photographing birds.  There often seems to be a stick (or sticks) in front of the subject matter.

While I thought the bird above was in the flycatcher family, it was just a little hard to see.  Then the wind blew and slightly moved the branch so I could get the next photo and see it was a Western Kingbird.

With ducks, the problem sometimes is that they spend so much time preening that you only catch weird poses.

American Coot

Or, if they are not preening, they are eating-- like this pair of Blue-winged Teals.  Though I do think their back feathers are pretty, it would have been nice to have the male's head in the photo.

Sometimes, the subject you want gets photo-bombed by someone else.  I was trying to get a good shot of this male Northern Shoveler when the American Coot snuck into the photo from the back.

After a few tries, I did catch the Shoveler in a nice pose.

Many birds are hard to photograph because they are usually very shy, such as a Sora.  However, that wasn't the problem with the Sora we saw along the boardwalk at the Birding Center at Port Aransas.  No, the problem there was that it never stopped moving.  You can see the blur of its legs in the next photo.

Another shy bird, or at least hard-to-see because it's so well camouflaged, is the Wilson's Snipe.  I felt very luck to get this shot, even though there is the stick-where-I-don't-want-it problem.

Warblers are also notoriously hard to photograph.  They are almost always in constant motion and usually flitting around high in the trees.  I often don't even try to photograph them!  Unless they are a life bird, like this Blue-winged Warbler.

Or a favorite, like this Black-and-White Warbler.

Sometimes they are 'co-operative', as was this Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Well, he was for a brief moment - until he turned...

...that really wasn't the side (or end?) I was hoping for!

Neither was this:

It's a Thrasher, but since we never did see the front of it, we had to leave its identity at "Thrasher species."  A Long-billed Thrasher had been reported at that location on eBird the day before, but since most of the characteristics that distinguish them from Brown Thrashers are on their head (and either species is possible for the location)... well, you can see the problem!

Speaking of heads... check out the next photo very carefully.

Do you see a bird? I should say, do you see a tiny bird's head? (Look right in the center of the photo.)

This might have been the bird I got most excited about on our trip.  It was definitely a 'watch, keep watching... catch a glimpse -- get a great look for a few moments' bird!  We were at Paradise Pond in Port Aransas, a small bird sanctuary in the middle of town, where a lot of birders congregate because it's such a good spot for birds.  Because the sanctuary is small in size, when a 'good' bird is seen, birders who may have been scattered around all convene to try to see it.  When "Cerulean Warbler" is mentioned that is definitely the case.  My husband and I saw a glimpse of blue in the shrubbery.  Then more glimpses... binoculars up! And then some great looks at this uncommon and declining bird.  I couldn't help words coming out of my mouth (though in hushed tones, of course) "Ahhh", "Oh my goodness... beautiful!"  I didn't even think to try to get a photograph until after I had watched him for awhile, unlike these people who had been trying and trying to get a photo of one:

The man said he got a "butt shot" and I said, "I got its head".  Then he said, "Maybe if we put them together we'd have the whole bird!"  (I was kind of glad I got the head!)

While many of my shots were deleted immediately, as I said, I've kept some really bad photos... just because they are life birds.  I know the next photo is an Orchard Oriole, even though no one else could probably tell, except maybe from the coloration.

 But I did manage to get lucky on some other birds.

Yellow-throated Vireo

Pied-billed Grebe

The next photo I like for the expression on the face of the Little Blue Heron:

Another one of my favorite photos from the trip is this Common Moorhen, because you can see its interesting feet and it looks like it is looking at its reflection.

Another choice for bird photography is to take videos, which is sometimes the best option.  However, this post is already long enough for today-- and the sun is shining now (time for me to get back outside!) so maybe next time I'll share one of those!