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

February 8th Blind Report - San Angelo State Park

As mentioned on my February 8th entry, I made the choice to travel on Saturday and stay local on Sunday because the weather on Sunday had the potential to be really bad. As it turned out, it was a good decision to stay local.

I got out to the blind a little bit after 8:30 and the cloud cover was pretty significant. Temperature was reasonably warm, but the wind was blowing pretty well. After I took care of some volunteer-related activities, I settled into the blind and was joined by another of the regulars to the blind.

The theme of the day was spurts. We'd go 10-15 minutes of big numbers of birds, and then all of a sudden a hurried departure and no birds for 5-10 minutes. The cycle went through a few times and our guess was that there was some form of predator making the rounds but we weren't sure what it was. At about 10AM we got our answer--a hawk flew across the face of the blind chasing one of the house finches. The weather was starting to get even more windy and the light was quickly disappearing so it was a good time to pull stakes and get out.

The only real surprise of the day was not bird but mammal--a skunk wandered in around the blind looking for some water. He found a little bit and then away he went. I didn't get what I would consider wall-worthy material, but certainly something that I'll be able to use in the near future.

No laundry list on this visit.

Image: Golden-fronted Woodpecker (Male), San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller

February 7th Blind Report - South Llano River State Park Blinds #1 (Loma) and #4 (Acorn)

I stepped completely away from taking pictures last weekend. Weather locally was too clear and I had some projects staring me directly in the face that kept me from getting in the car and traveling elsewhere. So I took the time to take care of business and put off any travel to this weekend.

So Saturday I went down to South Llano River State Park. Easy choice to make. Weather was supposed to be dicey on Sunday so I figured a road trip Saturday and then fingers crossed on a couple of hours on Sunday at San Angelo State Park. Plus, if I was going to be at South Llano River I would also make a quick scouting trip to Lost Maples SNA.

I started once again in Blind #4 (aka Acorn). Weather was considerably warmer this weekend as compared to 2 weekends ago. I was able to leave the gloves and ski-style mask in the car this time around. It was very comfortable with just a poly-pro shirt and my standard camouflage outershirt without need for a jacket. Skies however were mostly cloudy, which certainly knocked down the available light, but it diffused things nicely.

Species spread was a little smaller than last time around. No Downy Woodpecker and no Inca Dove. But pretty much everything else showed up. Goldfinches and sparrows seemed to be more numerous. Northern Cardinals were less numerous. Quite a few Pine Siskins wandering around. The Wild Turkeys which had made their visits the previous week were back again, too. All in all it was a good time.

As I started to head out of the park I decided to take advantage of the favorable sky conditions and stopped at Blind #1 (aka the Loma Blind). This blind is not nearly as cozy as Blind #4. Also, in my haste to leave the house I left my portable stool behind so it was going to be an uncomfortable photo shoot. There was a much more narrow species spread in this blind, but there were White-crowned Sparrows present here where they were not present in Blind #4. Light was good with the cloud-cover, even though it was nearly 11am.

Images:
Wild Turkey, South Llano River State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller
Bathing Female Northern Cardinal, South Llano River State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller