March 7th Report - San Angelo State Park

After getting my car out of the shop this week I had every intention to go to South Llano River State Park. But as I've quoted on this blog before (with respect and credit to Robert Burns), "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." I won't go into the particulars, but it involved both my normal Monday to Friday job and my photography sales side gig.

But, as luck would have it the weather was perfect for the sun-challenged blind that is the blind at San Angelo State Park. Saturday's forecast called for mostly to completely cloudy skies and the weatherman did not disappoint.

I got out to the blind at about 8:00 and after taking care of some things in the blind area under the auspices of my relationship with Friends of San Angelo State Park, I was ready to rock and roll.

First bird into the camera was a Curve-billed Thrasher. Unusual for a first bird, but I wasn't complaining. As the morning went on it was obvious that there was not one but two Curve-billed Thrashers making the rounds in the blind. Since there are minimal differences between the males and females and since Curve-billed's aren't exactly the most flock-like species, my guess is that they are a mating pair. Again, that's my guess. I'm not an ornithologist nor do I play one on TV.

No laundry list for this visit. Very narrow species spread. No titmice this time around. Cardinals and Pyrrhuloxia were around but were not in huge numbers. Lots and lots of Red-winged Blackbirds.

I made just under 200 exposures in my two hours out at the blind.

Images:
White-winged Dove, San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller
Curve-billed Thrasher, San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller

January 4th Blind Report - San Angelo State Park

It was awfully good to get back into the blind this morning. Last weekend was ruined by a lousy experience trying to take my Graduate Review Exam (GRE) and having their network drop 2 tests into the 4 test sequence. Very frustrating. That was followed-up with a Sunday that just didn't work the way I wanted to.

This weekend was a much better set of circumstances. I was able to get back to Abilene yesterday and take my GRE with a very positive test result (no, I'm not going to share, but let's just say I'm a very happy camper). The plan was to get out to the blind today and everything worked the way it was supposed to. Only two things were not that great. First was that it was mighty cold and mighty windy and I did not dress for the occasion. Second was that I'm still shooting without a good tripod head and my hand started to fatigue very quickly. As such I only stayed in the blind for a couple of hours, but they were very productive hours.

Lots and lots of color today. Plenty of Northern Cardinals, House Finches, and assorted sparrows. Both Golden-Fronted and Ladderbacked Woodpeckers made visits into the blind, though in both cases not for very long and not in places where I could get a good shot of them. Sparrows were running very strong with House, White-crowned, and Rufous-crowned varieties being very prevalent. Mourning and White-winged doves were present in large numbers, though White-winged were far more common. No bobwhites this morning, but looking back at the last couple of visits, they didn't usually show up until later in the morning.

No laundry list this morning. The blind was out of sheets, I didn't remember to bring a new supply, and in the big picture I don't think I could have gripped my pencil well enough to make good notes anyway.

Images:
Northern Mockingbird, San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller
Northern Cardinal (Male), San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller