Here are some bird watching photos from our March trip to Texas. We checked out the boardwalks at the birdwatching/convention centre a couple of times on South Padre Island and we also made a couple of trips to the Laguna Atascosa nature reserve. About half of the shore birds I'd seen before in Canada, but there were plently of exotic birds like roadrunners and colourful green jays, not to mention alligators and tropical birds with interesting names such as Chachalacas and Caracaras.
One exciting moment was seeing a large Texas blacksnake at the last minute at Laguna Atascosa. (Note: the proper name for these varmints is Indigo snake.) I was walking with my head down and fooling around with my camera on a paved pathway 2 minutes away from the building centre parking lot, not expecting to see anything and suddenly, boom! Here's this huge, black snake slithering accross the sidewalk just a few feet from my flip flop wearing tootsies... not to mention Kristien, who is deathly afraid of snakes, was just a few feet behind me with her mum and Nicolas. At least our boy was in the stroller and not running around like usual. Twas maybe 8 feet long. It turns out that they are not venomous but they are still very tough critters... they are immune to rattle snake venom and are known to eat rattlers.
Photos were taken with an Olympus E-330 camera paired with a pentax (sigma) 80 mm - 250 mm lens. The lens is a manual focus (vintage 1980's) and has decent optics. New digital SLR cameras increase the focal length of zoom lenses, so used with the Olympus 4/3 system, the focal length of my ol' pentax lens is approximately double what it would be on an old camera body... Equates to a great system for taking bird photos in bright sunlight.
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| Willet |
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| Willet on beach near house, S. Padre Island |
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| Bird watching on boardwalk near convention centre, S. Padre Island |
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| merganser |
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| Fish in shallow water |
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| Laughing gulls |
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| Painted turtle (freshwater) in pond at front of birding centre building, S. Padre Island |
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| Brown headed pelican on pier |
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| Dolphin seen from pier 19 resto |
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| Cormorant |
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| Boardwalks at SPI birding centre (connect to convention centre) |
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| Great egret |
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| Long billed curlew |
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| tri coloured heron |
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| Willet |
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| Black bellied tree ducks and blue winged teal |
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| Grackle |
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| Common gallinule |
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| Great blue heron |
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| 'gator |
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| A bout de choux (boochoo) on the loose |
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| 'gator in algae |
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| Bunny |
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| Brown thrasher |
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| Ground Dove |
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| Cardinal at feeding station at Laguna Atascosa nature reserve, photo taken from bird blind |
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| Green Jay at bird blind dining on what appears to be peanut butter smeared on tree branch |
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| Concrete tub for alligator's pleasure at Laguna Atascosa. Almost like a zoo, seeing it so close. Except of course the 'gator is completely wild and free (that's the walking path in the background) |
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| Turkey vulture |
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| Alligator in Laguna Atascosa |
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| Turkey vultures dining on a dead coyote, just outside Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife refuge |
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| Harris Hawk |
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| Roadrunner |
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| Reddish egret |
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| reddish egret |
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| UFO lizard |
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| caracara |
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| White tailed deer |
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| Altamira oriole (aka Lichenstein's oriole) |
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| Didn't see much wildlife on this loop but spotted lots of little holes dug into the trail that are apparently the work of armadillos |
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| chachalaca |
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| Flowering cactus in front of house, S. Padre Island |
List of birds (in order but not listing every single file):
- Willet
- Common Merganser
- Great Blue heron
- Laughing gull
- Osprey
- Brown Pelican
- Cormorant
- Greater Egret
- Long billed curlew
- Tri coloured heron
- Blue winged teal
- Black bellied tree duck
- Common Grackle
- Common Gallininule
- Brown Thrasher
- Redwinged Blackbird
- Ground dove (like a mini mourning dove)
- Cardinal
- Green Jay
- Turkey vulture
- Harris Hawk
- Road runner
- Reddish egret
- Caracara
- Altamira oriole (this is the common name; shown as Lichenstein's oriole in an old birdbook I have at home from my grandpa, but as per some info I found on the web, the name was officially changed in the 1970's.)
- Chachalaca
- (not shown) Mallard
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