March 21st Report - San Angelo State Park

Good morning in the blind. I had hoped to get out and about this weekend to someplace other than the same old thing, but family obligations and a very sore wrist kept me from traveling very far. I'm scheduled for another appointment for the wrist sometime in the next couple of weeks so hopefully we'll get to the bottom of that one--it's eating into my photography time ;)

But since I was more or less stuck in San Angelo (though happily stuck, may I add), and the light looked to be perfect, I headed out to the park to see what I could see.

Light was outstanding. Maybe a little bright at first and certainly the quality of the light changed often during my time in the blind. But it was almost universally good and only my impatience and knowing I had other things to accomplish on Saturday kept me from staying longer. Start time of actual shooting was around 8:25 and I stayed exactly 2 hours. Body count of the images was just south of 270 images and most of them were very good. The only significant mistake that I made was that I went to ISO 400 early in the morning because the shutter speeds were getting below 1/80th. As things brightened I did not go back to drop the ISO back to 200. With the 30D this is not a huge issue--noise is minimal at ISO 400. But at 200 it is far better.

First image of the day was a male Northern Cardinal. Last image was a Red-winged Blackbird. In between was a good variety of the standard late winter/early spring birds. The Orange-crowned warbler made his appearance and the small covey of Northern Bobwhites made an appearance as well with at least 5 being in the blind area at once. Pyrrhuloxia were out in large numbers as well, probably outnumbering the Northern Cardinals which is a very unusual occurrence. House Sparrows are becoming more abundant, though White-crowned sparrows are still out in force. If last year is any indication, the White-crowns should be starting to make their way elsewhere over the next few weeks. No repeat performances though from the Greater Roadrunner or the Golden-fronted Woodpecker and I haven't seen the Ladderbacks in weeks.

Again, a good shooting experience in the blind--well worth being stuck in town again.

Images:
Red-winged Blackbird (Female), San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller
Pyrrhuloxia (Male), San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller

February 16th Blind Report: San Angelo State Park

It's always good to have a Monday away from the office to go out to "the other office." Saturday was a lost shooting morning due to Concho Valley Photography Club. Always a blast and a great learning experience, but I can't shoot and be at the club meeting. Sunday's light was horrible--no sense wasting my time on bad light.

So Monday rolled around and it was heavily overcast. I wasn't holding my breath on getting great shots, but I knew that this would be better than my lack of opportunity on Sunday.

I made it out to the blind at about 9AM. A phone call on my way into the park slowed me down by about a half hour or so. Light was cold and minimal when I got out there, but as the morning progressed so did the light. Started out shooting at ISO 200 with exposures of 1/40th to 1/60th of a second at f/6.3 and by the time I left, depending on the direction I was shooting, exposure times were 1/150th to 1/400th of a second at the same ISO and f-stop.

Image opportunities were good. Multiple opportunities on Red-winged Blackbirds. They were darn near at invasion levels from time to time. A small smattering of Brown-headed Cowbirds made their return as well. I'm never pleased to see them, but have to report what I see.

There were a couple of oddities. Pyrrhuloxias, who normally are not exactly people friendly, made much closer passes to the blind. I think I matched my all-time favorite male shot on this photo opportunity. Also reasonably rare was the orange variant of the House Finch. I'm told that this is not a subspecies, but just a rarity. Whether through genetics or diet is an open debate. Regardless, got a couple of decent images of him as well.

No laundry list--my copy of my notes did not make it between the car and the house.

Images:
House Finch (Male) - orange variation, San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller
Red-winged Blackbird (Male), San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller

January 17th Blind Report - San Angelo State Park

Very fine morning of shooting in the blind. Polar opposite of my last visit in the blind...

As those of you who read the page regularly know, my typical day out to the blind is Sunday. My significant other and I do not share a specific common faith belief, so she takes off for a traditional church and I take off for my 2-3 hours of meditation and reflection.

But Friday night, looking at the sky conditions here in San Angelo I got to thinking about how Saturday might look. So a quick run to weather.com and the hour-by-hour forecast showed that Saturday morning was going to be mostly cloudy. Bingo. Guess we'll have an extra session of meditation and reflection on Saturday. It was a genuinely good call.

Light was perfect Saturday morning. Very cloudy to start with, but the clouds were not so thick to obscure all of the light. Sure, at ISO 200 I was at f/5.6 and between 1/50th and 1/100th at the very beginning, but I resisted the urge to step it up to ISO 400. I find that ISO 400 is very printable with the Canon 30D, but old film habits die hard and I always try to shoot with the lowest ISO possible.

As the morning progressed the light did get better and I eventually settled closer into the f/8 range with more manageable shutter speeds.

The shoot started very unusually--a Golden-Fronted Woodpecker was the first bird I was able to get an image of. First time in all of the times I've shot at the blind that this was the case.

Here is the laundry list. Very good species spread. In addition to what is posted, there is an another sparrow that I've not seen before and I'm asking for some guidance amongst the local birding community. Update (Jan 19): The sparrow that I could not previously identify was a Lincoln's Sparrow. I will share the image in a future blog entry.

Some highlights: My first somewhat decent image of a male Pyrrhuloxia, though I would have preferred that he was perched on anything other than the terracotta feeder. Cardinals were running strong. The more ground-type birds (i.e. Greater Roadrunners and Northern Bobwhites) were nowhere to be found, but I did see a Roadrunner outside of the park as I was making my way to the blind.

I did get a life list entry. I saw my first Eastern Meadowlark. Okay, for those of you who grew up in this area you're probably scratching your head and going "Huh?" But I did not grow up in this area and while I've seen a Western Meadowlark, I've never seen it's eastern cousin.

Overall, this was an outstanding morning in the blind.

Images:
Pyrrhuloxia (Male), San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller
Bewick's Wren, San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller