January 7th Report: Pedernales Falls SP

This one has been a long time in coming.  Sorry.  Been busy.  Mostly with trying to keyword all of the images from this visit and figure out which ones are going to turn into prints.  I wish I had that problem all the time...

It was an outstanding morning of shooting in the blind.  As I mentioned over at Jim's Assorted, Usually Photographic, Ramblings, I left home late and thought I had missed the best of the opportunities.  Over 660 images (and one full card later) I can assure you that I did not.

I won't go through the whole laundry list of birds I saw that day.  If you want to see it, I'll gently nudge you over to my eBird list for the day.  Some of the highlights...

- Seeing a pair of male Ladder-backed Woodpeckers in the blind area at the same time for a while.  To have two woodpeckers of the same species, especially males, co-exist for any length of time was remarkable.

- Seeing my first Eastern Towhee.  I've seen more than my share of Spotted Towhees and there isn't a huge difference between the species (just really white spots on the wings), but to confirm that they are at the park was cool.

- The massive Northern Cardinal invasion.  Wow... if you were in the blind and didn't make a good image of a Northern Cardinal, it was probably time to get on Craigslist and sell your camera equipment.  I don't think that it is an exaggeration that I have 5-6 very printable images of different poses from the day.  It was a banner day for my dipped in red friends.

It was not all wine and roses.  The light did get very harsh towards the end.  There was no evidence that the birds had been fed any seed that day, yet there was plenty of spent seeds on the ground.  It wouldn't hurt to have the area cleaned up a bit.  There was also no obvious evidence of paste/suet/peanut butter type food being out, either.

Regardless, it was an incredible day of shooting and I just wish I'd gotten there two hours earlier and had brought one more memory card.

Image:
Rufous-crowned Sparrow, Pedernales Falls SP, © 2012 jmillerphoto.com

Another Truncated Update

Blog entries are coming soon.  I've been busy with photo shoots here and there and I just haven't caught up here.  I spent one day last weekend at Pedernales Falls SP and I have a blog entry coming about that hopefully in the next day or two.  And then yesterday (Sunday) I visited three different blinds in two different state parks.  Figure on at least two additional blog entries from those visits and perhaps a third, just depending on how things shake out.

A quick bit of good news.  San Angelo SP has replaced the windows in the bird blind there.  When I visited yesterday there was a solid bit of food present and the water was flowing again the water feature.  This is very good news indeed and I'm hoping to make it back up in the next month or so to see if things continue to progress there.

No more news in terms of workshops or other special events at the private blinds.  But as I hear about things I will let you know.

Image:
Field Sparrow, South Llano River SP, ©2012 jmillerphoto.com

News for the New Year

I hope your holidays were good for you and yours and you are plotting out your shooting opportunities in this new year.

I haven't had any time in a blind since my visit to San Angelo State Park.  In fact, the camera sat on the shelf for close to two weeks as the weather was miserable and wet, which is exactly what we needed in Texas.  I will be pulling out my pop-up blind tomorrow as preparation for a visit to San Angelo in a couple of weeks.

I was made aware of a new blind in South Texas.  It is the Rockin' R Ranch, west of Ben Bolt.  A photographer (Jeff Parker) has set up the blinds and the images off of his site are very impressive.  The fee for the day is $125 per day for the blind or $295 for the day for the blind with Jeff working as your guide.  Contact Jeff for more information.

Thanks for making last year really rewarding.  Stay tuned...2012 is going to be outstanding.