This first bird, the Turkey Vulture, is certainly no Hooded Warbler, but I still find it a rather interesting looking bird.

Turkey Vulture On Fence Post

The White Tailed Kite, is a very nice looking bird I think, and it is not one that I would want to mess with if I were a small rodent or lizard.

White Tailed Kite Sitting In Tree

The White Faced Ibis, in it’s Spring plumage, is a very pretty bird with very pretty feathers.  This one was preening when I photographed it.

White Faced Ibis Preening

The Eastern Meadowlark has one of the nicest songs of any bird.  When we were driving through the meadow you could just hear the pleasant songs coming from this bird.

Eastern Meadowlark Singing In Field

And, last but not least for this post, is the Common Yellowthroat.  I’ve never been successful in photographing one of these birds before because they seem rather shy.

Common Yellowthroat Looking For Food

The first day was rather overcast, and I wasn’t particularly pleased with many of my pictures.  The second day was awesome as a cold front moved in bringing North winds.  With the north winds blowing, that tends to slow down the birds who are migrating, and Quintana is quite well known around Texas as being a popular place for witnessing hard to find birds who are resting in their continuing migration.

Before I post some of my better pictures, let me throw out there that I may have found two new favorite birds.  The Hooded Warbler and the White Eyed Vireo.

The Brown Thrasher was a bird that I saw almost every day while visiting the Sanctuary.  Actually I think there were a couple of them.

Brown Thrasher On Quintana Bench

Brown Thrasher In Morning Light

Brown Thrasher Eating Worm

The Yellow Throated Warbler is a very pretty bird, but a bit difficult to photograph as they don’t sit still for long, and are often hiding among multiple tree branches.

Yellow Throated Warbler On Branch

Then there’s one of my new favorite birds.  The White Eyed Vireo.  It has a very pretty song and those white eyes are irresistible.

White Eyed Vireo On Tree Branch

White Eyed Vireo By Water Drip

Then there’s my new favorite bird, the Hooded Warbler.  This little bird is just absolutely beautiful, but a real challenge to photograph.  Unfortunately, this bird was only at the Sanctuary for one day.

Hooded Warbler On Twig In Quintana Texas

Hooded Warbler In Flight

Last, but not least, I think I photographed a Bronzed Cowbird.  I’m not a huge fan of Cowbirds, but this one was interesting to me because of the red eyes.

Bronzed Cowbird

First is a Field Sparrow sitting in a tree.  Their were others on its species just outside the frame of this picture.

Field Sparrow In Tree

Another small bird I saw who appeared pretty tired was a White Throated Sparrow hiding in a bunch of twigs (at least I hope that’s what it is)

White Throated Sparrow Hiding In Twigs

Yet another Sparrow, this one I believe is a Savannah Sparrow.  Nope, it’s a Song Sparrow.

Song Sparrow In Tree

One more that took me a while to figure out, was a Rose Breasted Grosbeak

Rose Breasted Grosbeak In Mix Of Trees

If we head over towards the beach and jetty, there are lots of birds over there as well.  The Ruddy Turnstone was a common bird that I saw.

Three Ruddy Turnstones On A Log

After standing on the log for a while, one decides to walk around.

Ruddy Turnstone Walking Down Log

It then stops and appears to stare at it’s reflection.

Ruddy Turnstone Staring At Reflection

I’ll warn any potential visitors now.  There’s not much to do there other than go birding and relax (and fish which I did not do).  For me, it was perfect!  I was also fortunate enough to hook back up with Greg Lavaty who is one of the premier birders and bird photographers in Texas.  Greg came out to visit on my first day in town and we immediately went out birding. Birding with Greg is always a great experience for me for a couple of reasons.  One, that guy can spot a bird before I’ve even looked in the general direction of a bird.  Second, he’s a great bird photographer and I always learn about bird photography when he and I have a chance to visit.  I must confess, I also always have a negative experience in birding with Greg as well.  Every time I see him with the Canon EF 500mm lens I get jealous:-).

Now on to the birds, at least some of them that I saw and photographed (I’m breaking this post into 2 different sections so the page doesn’t take forever to load).  One of my favorite shots that I took on my next to last day was of a Brown Pelican.  The reason that this is one of my favorite shots is because I’m used to taking pictures of things that aren’t in motion, or standing still, not birds in flight.  What I was excited about is that I captured this Brown Pelican floating along in the sky, then suddenly it did a nose dive into the water.

Brown Pelican Hovering Before Diving

Brown Pelican Turning To Dive

Brown Pelican Diving Straight To The Water

Brown Pelican Lifting From Water After Empty Dive

Some of the other shots I like were of a Crested Caracara and a Harlan’s Hawk.  The Harlan’s Hawk (which I would have never identified without Greg telling me) used to be considered a separate species from a Red Tailed Hawk, but now is considered a “morph.”  It’s not that my pictures are that great, rather it’s that this bird is somewhat rare. As to how this Hawk is of the same species as a Red Tailed Hawk I have no idea as they certainly don’t look similar to me.

Harlan's Hawk On Telephone Pole

Harlan's Hawk In Flight

Harlan's Hawk With Wings Fully Spread

The Crested Caracara is an interesting looking bird to me.  This bird almost looks like it would be from Africa or something, not a bird that you would expect to find in Texas (or Florida).

Crested Caracara Resting On Fence Pole

Quintana also has a jetty where some folks decide to fish.  Interestingly enough, I didn’t see one person in 3 days who ever had a single fish, but I did see a giant rat which would have walked right over me if I hadn’t moved out of the way.  I’m not joking, this rat started from much further down the jetty, then would dart in and out of the rocks, and was going to walk right into me.

Big Brown Rat Staring At Me On The Jetty

Another favorite that I photographed was a Le Conte’s Sparrow.  Confession:  I wouldn’t have been as excited if I hadn’t seen Greg get so excited since I had no clue what type of bird this was initially.  This poor bird was exhausted, and since it was on the Jetty, it likely had spent the night flying over water and this was the first bit of land it had found.  These are pretty secretive birds who tend to hide in grassy fields and marsh edges, not walking on concrete around a bunch of fisherman.

Le Conte's Sparrow Walking On Quintana Jetty

Le Conte's Sparrow On Quintana Jetty Resting

Le Conte's Sparrow Resting On Rock At Quintana Jetty

I’ll do my best to post some additional pictures and commentary this weekend for Part Two of my vacation in Quintana, Texas.

When I first got to Skillern the first creatures to greet me were the mosquitoes, big ones and lots of them.  Fortunately I brought the mosquito repellant so they didn’t overwhelm me.  As I walked along one of the trails there was this pretty little bird darting up and down from a tall tree.  It was a female Vermillion Flycatcher.  I love these little birds!

Female Vermillion Flycatcher Side View

Female Vermillion Flycatcher Front View

There were also lots of Northern Harriers and these birds are fun for me to photograph.  Since they float above their potential prey, it gave me a good opportunity to get some decent photographs.

Northern Harrier About To Land In Field

Northern Harrier Hovering Over A Possible Meal

At Skillern there were lots of open fields, and I’m sure I missed a tons of birds.  One bird that I’ve never photographed before was an Eastern Meadowlark hiding in the field.

Eastern Meadowlark In Field

In addition I saw lots of Savannah Sparrows.

Savannah Sparrow In Field Of Brown

Savannah Sparrow Resting On Branch In Field

A particular noisy little bird that I saw hiding in the woods was a Winter Wren.

Winter Wren Hiding In The Woods

These are just a few of the many, many birds I saw at Skillern.  I took alot of bad photographs, and missed many opportunities.

Birds weren’t the only creatures I saw.  There were lots of Gulf Fritillary Butterflies (that surprised me) and a few Monarch Butterflies.  I was really surprised by how bright the color was on the Gulf Fritillaries.

Very Bright Orange Gulf Fritillary At Skillern Tract

I called Leecy a few hours into my trip and she said she wanted to see a picture of an Alligator.  I was lucky enough to find one sunning on the shore.

Alligator At Skillern Tract In Anahuac

I really, really enjoyed Skillern Tract of the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge and plan on returning once they weather cools down a bit.  You absolutely have to bring mosquito repellant otherwise you will be eaten alive.  Even though I was well coated at the beginning, apparently the stuff wears off because I was attacked later on.  I re-coated myself and all was well.

I’m planning on revisiting Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge tomorrow (Saturday).  I think it’s been almost a year since I was last out there.  Even then, I remember how low the water levels were.  It’s a great birding location (in my opinion).  While I’m not very good at identifying the birds, I always enjoy my time out there.  It is so quiet and desolate and I actually like that type of serenity.

Oh, I also bought a couple of new “things.”  One is the Vortex Viper 8×42 HD Binocular and the other is the Naturescapes SkimmerSack Bean Bag.  The binoculars are for birdwatching and identification and the Skimmersack is for photography when shooting from your car (or fence post, etc).  I really do want to become better at identifying birds so I figured the binoculars may help somewhat for the birds I see and want to identify before trying to sneak up on them to take a picture.  I’ll try and post some reviews sometime soon of both of these, as well as some new birding books I recently bought.

I’ll be posting pictures from the Anahuac trip later this weekend.

Yesterday as Leecy and I were driving back from the grocery store, I noticed a large flock of water birds in this pond on Lake Houston.  When I say pond, it’s a pond now because of the drought, but it’s actually part of Lake Houston.

Some of the birds looked a little unusual to me, so I did a quick u-turn to take a look.  Since I didn’t have my camera with me, I had to make do with my iPhone.

Allow me to build this story just a bit.  Yesterday I took some pictures with my iPhone.  Today I went back to see if I could find those unusual birds I saw yesterday.  When I took these first pictures yesterday I remember thinking how sad it was that so much of Lake Houston has dried up.  When I went back today, there were a couple of onlookers watching the birds.  One gentleman walked by and said to this lady “It’s a real shame, huh”?  She replied, “no, I think it’s beautiful.”  I guess that proves it depends on how one views things.  For some it’s an opportunity, for others it’s a disaster.

These first 3 pictures are from yesterday.

Lake Houston Drought

All of the brown area used to be covered in water.  Now it’s just dry, parched grass and twigs.

Lake Houston Drought Showing Previous Shoreline

This picture is facing the other direction.  You can see just how far the water has receded.

Lake Houston Drought Showing Pond That Was Part Of Lake

In the above picture, you may be able to just make out a few of the birds.  This part of the lake is now just a pond.  The lake is so low, this pond no longer connects with the lake.

This morning when I returned, the picture was completely different.  There were lots of Wood Storks, which are somewhat rare birds I believe.

Line Of Wood Storks On Shoreline Lake Houston

Overall, there were probably over 20 Wood Storks, 5-10 Roseate Spoonbills, and lots and lots of Great Egrets.

Wood Stork About To Land On Water Lake Houston

Wood Stork Landing On Water Lake Houston

You can tell from the above pictures that the Wood Stork is a pretty large bird, especially compared to the Great Egrets.  If you want to read more about Wood Storks, here’s a link to Wikipedia.

Wood Stork Eating A Fish Lake Houston

I mentioned in the beginning of this post how one person saw the drought effect of Lake Houston as “sad”, whereas another person thought it was “beautiful.”  Not that the drought is beautiful, but all the birds centered on this pond was beautiful.  It certainly presents an easy opportunity for the Wood Storks to easily catch fish.

Besides the Wood Storks catching fish, the Great Egrets were able to catch lots of fish.  This one bird nearly lost his catch.

Great Egret About To Eat A Fish Lake Houston

Last, but not least are the Roseate Spoonbills.  These are really pretty birds, a nice shade of reddish-pink.

Pair Of Roseate Spoonbills On Lake Houston

Pair Of Roseate Spoonbills With Heads Down On Lake Houston

What’s my take on the “beautiful” versus “sad” part of this story?  I honestly see both, but lean more towards sad.  Yes, this pond that was part of Lake Houston has presented a wonderful opportunity for some birds.  I wouldn’t think the opportunity would last very long, this week we’re supposed to have record highs, and the fish in this pond surely cannot survive for long.

Leecy On Horseback For The First Time

Fortunately, Leecy didn’t fall off the horse and came back quite pleased with herself.  She did mention her legs are a little sore, but other than that, I think she had a good time.

One day while Leecy and I were investigating the property looking for Deer horns (Leecy just corrected me, they’re called antlers.  Obviously I’m not a hunter), Leecy spotted these 2 Pipevine Caterpillars on these dry blades of grass.  This was a little unexpected because we didn’t see any Pipevine plants in the field, but there were lots and lots of Pipevine Butterflies flying around (probably the most prevalent Butterfly we saw).

Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillars Found At Country Inn And Cottages

On Wednesday I had a little work to do (I know, I’m supposed to be on vacation) so while Leecy went horseback riding (more on that in another post), and I had a little time to kill, I decided to roam the 200 or so acres around the Cottages looking for Butterflies.  Overall the Wildflowers are pretty limited anywhere in the Texas Hill Country, but I did find a little place out in the field that had some yellow Wildflowers growing.  That turned out to be the best place to find a variety of Butterflies.

There were Painted Lady Butterflies,

Painted Lady Butterfly Found At Country Inn And Cottages

Variegated Fritillary Butterflies,

Variegated Fritillary Butterfly Found At Country Inn And Cottages

Queen Butterflies,

Queen Butterfly Found At Country Inn And Cottages

and many other smaller Butterflies that I wasn’t quick (or patient) enough to get pictures of.

One of the most unusual Butterflies (for me) I saw was a Goatweed Leafwing Butterfly.  You may not be able to see this from the web, but if you look on that blade of grass (or Goatweed I guess) towards the bottom, you will see a small Caterpillar.  Obviously I didn’t notice this until I got back to the Cottage to examine the pictures.  This is not a Butterfly I would expect to see in my backyard.

Goatweed Leafwing Butterfly With Caterpillar

We also saw some Monarch Butterflies and I wish I would have brought my Milkweed book as I’m sure there were varieties of Milkweed out in these fields that I’m just not accustomed to seeing.

Texas Longhorn Shaking Off The Flies

Any animals that has horns this big, and throws out spit when it is shaking off the flies on its head makes me nervous.

Texas Longhorn Investigating Bucket With Deer In Background

I might be the only animal that’s nervous around this big guy as the Deer certainly don’t seem to mind his presence.

A very common bird out here that we see all day long is the Scissor Tailed Flycatcher.  I think I’ve seen about 4-5 different ones flying around and hanging out in the trees.

Scissor Tailed Flycatcher Above My Head

These birds seem pretty social.  In the picture above, it landed on a wire right above my head.  I barely had enough distance between myself and my lens to get an in focus picture.

Scissor Tailed Flycatcher On Wire

This evening I went out to take more pictures and noticed these little birds running around in this field with the Cattle and Deer.  They are Lark Sparrows.

Pair Of Lark Sparrows In Field

Lark Sparrow Foraging For Dinner

Leecy’s favorite bird has been this male Peacock that’s a permanent resident.  While the outdoor kittens were eating their food, the Peacock put on a full display trying to scare them away.  To me this picture looks almost fake, but I promise, it’s a real bird.

Peacock In Full Display

Another new bird (for me) was this Western Kingbird.

Western Kingbird Sitting On Branch

Western Kingbird In Flight

For those that have been reading the blog for a while, you may recall I went to Fredericksburg last year in August.  During that time I took some wonderful pictures (look on the right hand side of the blog and choose either Fredericksburg or Wildseed Farms to see the pictures) of Butterflies, Hummingbirds, and Wildflowers.

Generally this time of year is the peak of Wildflower season, but with this drought I’m not sure how things may look. I am hopeful I will get some really nice pictures of Wildflowers and the place we are staying is supposed to have wireless connectivity, so I intend to post pictures in the evening.  Last year when I went there were also lots of Butterflies at Wildseed Farms so I’d like to get more pictures of that with nice Wildflower backgrounds.

That’s about all for now.  Look for lots of updates to the blog during the upcoming week.

We arrived at the park at 7:00 am, but it wasn’t quite open yet, so Leecy took a quick cat nap, and I, well I fidgeted.

My intention was to use my Feisol CT-3472 tripod and my Induro GHB2 Gimbal Head (see here and here for my review).  I also intended using the Canon 1.4X II and Canon 2x II teleconverters.

I quickly found out that bringing the tripod was a mistake.  The birds at Brazos Bend are way too quick for using a tripod in most circumstances, and the park is really large so carrying a tripod gets really heavy.  Thankfully, Leecy wasn’t carrying anything so I gave her the tripod to lug around.

I hadn’t intended to use the 2x teleconverter all that much, but with these birds I really needed the extra reach that the teleconverter offered.  I must say, I was really impressed by how much detail I was able to capture with this teleconverter!

Oh, before I forget, I think Leecy and I had a great time at the park, except for one circumstance.

There was this grumpy old man riding a bike with a large lens taking pictures.  He kept starting and stopping taking pictures so we weren’t sure what he was actually doing.  As were walking around one of the lakes, we walk past this guy who promptly gave us a lecture about how we should have been more considerate when someone is taking pictures as we just scared off the Vermilion Flycatcher he was taking a picture of.  Whatever!  The guy was sitting right in the middle of the walking trail for several minutes and moving around so we didn’t know what the hell he was doing.  I kept my mouth shut, but Leecy was none to pleased about this guy’s attitude and gave him a nickname.

Anyway, so now for the bird pictures.  Many of these birds I’ve never taken pictures of before, and I was really pleased about how many were keepers.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip was of this Ruby Crowned Kinglet.  These are really cute birds, but damn, are they hard to get pictures of.  They never stop moving!

Ruby Crowned Kinglet Eating Seed Around Moss

Ruby Crowned Kinglet Eating Seed Side Profile

I also managed to capture one of these birds in flight, but don’t ask me how I did it.  It was nothing but pure luck.

Ruby Crowned Kinglet In Flight Brazos Bend

Even though the old grump guy acted like the Vermilion Flycatcher was the only one in the park, I captured a few shots of this bird in another area.

Female Vermilion Flycatcher In Golden Light

Female Vermilion Flycatcher On Branch

There were lots of Woodpeckers throughout the Park, and you could constantly hear them knocking on the trees.  One of the most common Woodpeckers that I saw was the Red Bellied Woodpecker.

Pair Of Red Bellied Woodpeckers In Tree

This one Red Bellied Woodpecker found a nut (I think that’s what it is) and kept looking for a place to hide it within a tree.  I didn’t realize they did that, but it certainly appeared to be what was happening.

Red Bellied Woodpecker With Nut

Red Bellied Woodpecker Hiding Nut In Tree

One of Leecy’s favorite birds to see were the Ibises, both the White Ibis and White Faced Ibis.

White Faced Ibis At Brazos Bend State Park

The White Ibises where I took the majority of these pictures were all lined up on a large tree branch.  There must have been close to a dozen of them all sitting side by side.

White Ibis Sleeping Brazos Bend State Park

Two White Ibis Standing On Large Tree At Brazos Bend

White Ibis Standing On Large Dead Tree Brazos Bend

Leecy always likes Ducks, so I made a few captures of Blue Winged Teals.

Blue Winged Teal In Water Brazos Bend State Park

The picture below is a Male Blue Winged Teal surrounded by Common Moorhens.

Male Blue Winged Teal Surrounded By Moorhen

Speaking of Common Moorhen, I really like this next picture.  The reflection of this Common Moorhen makes it look like it has a small fish in its mouth, at least to me.

Common Moorhen Reflection On Water

I didn’t really spend any time attempting to take pictures of birds in flight, but when one of these Double Crested Cormorants (I think that’s what this is) flew by, I started snapping away.

Double Crested Cormorant In Flight

One bird that has a really pretty song is the Carolina Wren.  This bird was sitting on this large branch just singing away.

Carolina Wren On Dead Branch Brazos Bend

I really had no idea what this next bird was, all I knew was that it seemed to walk on water.  If I’m not mistaken, this is a Swamp Sparrow.

Swamp Sparrow Brazos Bend State Park

Last, but not least, I got a few shots of the Yellow Rumped Warbler.  It’s another cute little bird.

Yellow Rumped Warbler On Tree With Moss

Overall this was a great little trip.  I learned I can bring a tripod if I’m really interested just in focusing on a couple of birds, but for walking around the whole park, it would have been better if I left the tripod in the car.  I also wish I would have brought along my flash, as it could have really helped lighten some of the shadows or to capture some of the birds that were in darker cover.  For the life of me I don’t know why I only brought along one compact flash (CF) card, but next time, I need to bring a couple, as it is very easy to fill up an entire card at this park.

If you live in the Houston area, I highly recommend a visit to Brazos Bend State Park if you’ve never been before.  It’s a wonderful place to take pictures of birds and other wildlife.  Just be prepared, as the park is quite big, and it’s easy to get worn out carrying lots of camera equipment.