When I was at the Birding Center Thursday, the Roseate Spoonbills took most of my attention.  A little sideshow, however, was the Dowitchers.  They had been congregating, intermixed with some Spoonbills, on the other side of the reeds and cattails from me. 

Suddenly, they rose up together like a swarm of Texas mosquitos:

How would you like to be the air-traffic controller for that mess?  Then they circled around the water on the far side of the cattails…

…before settling back in amongst the Roseate Spoonbills.  This cloud of birds was really quite a sight.  I’m heading over there again today, so who knows what I’ll see?  Every day is a new adventure.

–Sue

Today Judy Laquidara asks the question, where do you get inspiration for your quilts?  Just yesterday I took this photo of Roseate Spoonbills with some Black-Necked Stilts in the background.   When I saw it up on the computer, I thought, “I need to make a black and white and pink quilt”! 

This pair made me smile.  ”My place or yours?”  Notice where their nostrils are.  They can wade in the water with their beak almost fully immersed, looking for food on the bottom, and still be able to breathe.

There was a lot of wing lifting yesterday.  According to Wikipedia, they do the wing lifts to straighten a primary feather, for preening, or for drying.  They certainly are pretty pretty birds, and should be inspiration to all of us who have noses a little larger than the ideal size — just wear a lot of bright pink!

One more picture for a good look at that spatula of a beak…

–Sue

A warm sunny morning turned into a warm-sunned chilly-wind afternoon.  Of course, I went to the birding center in the less-than-pleasant afternoon.  There were still some good photo ops.  The Cormorants are plentiful down here, but I seldom take their pictures.   Here is one coming in for a landing to hang out with his buds…

Another common bird I don’t photograph very much are the American Coots:

  This Brown Pelican was flying low, skimming over the water:

At Paradise Pond, the Black-Crowned Night Herons are really abundant right now.  You don’t see very many in the trees, but they are nocturnal and lift up out of the trees about dusk.  People have counted well over 100 of them.  I have to get over there this week between 6:30 and 7:00 pm to check it out this year.

But the Great Blue Herons were the stars of the show again.  It’s the beginning of their nesting time.  There were a number of lone Great Blue Herons in this grove of trees…

along with this pair.  Awwww…

But my favorite heron picture is probably this next one, with the sun hitting the spring-green foliage:

–Sue

Port Aransas, TX, is a fun place to be this time of year.  There are all kinds of migratory birds passing through, and from day to day, you never know what you will see.

Last week, we went for a walk with friends through the newly developed “Charlie’s Pasture” area on the island.  From a viewing tower, we spotted what looked like a Great Blue Heron wading/fishing a distance away.  The only thing was, the nead and neck were kind of pinky colored.   I zoomed all the way out on my camera, hoping for the best and took a couple of pictures.  When I got it up on the computer monitor, I knew it wasn’t a blue heron — but what was it???

Okay, I know it’s a pretty bad picture, but it was enough to identify this critter.  It’s a Reddish Egret.  It’s so much fun to see something new, and I hope I get to see one again close up.

Today at the birding center, I saw some of the American Avocets in the water.  I usually see them on shore, so it was fun to see them swimming.

A single Roseate Spoonbill was hanging out on the same point where the alligator was a week ago or so.  There were many avocets, ducks of all kinds, dowitchers, black-necked stilts, and turtles on this little point also.

Today I stopped over at Paradise Pond and THAT’s where all the Great Blue Herons were hanging out.  

They weren’t wading in the water, but rather they were mostly in trees, with one deciding to fly over the pond, which was pretty exciting.  It’s hard to beat blue herons for for picture-taking.  The bird that circled overhead is the one that is picture up in the bare tree branches.  That was a rare treat; I’ve never seen one of them sit up there before.  Then he decided to get down lower into the brushy part of the tree, and kind of crashed and thrashed his way down through the branches.  For such a graceful looking bird, he moved through the tree like a gawky teenager! 

Wonder what I’ll see tomorrow?

–Sue

I have loved my “old” camera — a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20.  It came out in 2005; I bought mine in 2006.

Taking bird pictures, it seems you’re always wishing for more zoom.  I talked to a couple of serious bird photographers who were toting cameras with gigantic lenses and big, sturdy tripods; they even said they wished for more zoom.  *sigh*

About once a year, I research my dream dslr camera body and dream big lens.  Then I cringe at the cost, and pack that dream back up and stuff it in the back of my head.  This year, I thought to myself (because DH sure doesn’t want to hear this kind of talk), maybe I should just bite the bullet and get what I want.  Picked out my camera body and lens, started reading through the specs, and the lens weighs 8 pounds!!!  I would need to lug a tripod around!!!  I slept on that notion, and decided that wasn’t for me.  I will give up the big long lens in favor of a camera I can actually hang around my neck.  So what did I get? 

I have liked my Panasonic so well, I decided to go with their Lumix FZ35.  18x optical zoom, 4 times digital zoom.  12.1 megapixels.  Lens in the nonzoomed position is more of a wide angle.  Came out in 2009.  It is smaller and lighter than my old camera, which should be a plus for me.  After having three days to play with it, I like it.  I am still figuring things out.  It has more features, and everything isn’t in the same place.  It will take a little time to adjust to it.

So of course I went to the birding center today.  Here is a wide view from the top of the viewing tower:

You would be amazed at how many birds are in the picture — they just aren’t out in the open.  Notice the red circle.  I saw a Roseate Spoonbill drop in there for a landing so I zoomed in:

The spoonbills were cavorting on the other side of the cattails!  Do you think a single one would come on over to MY side of the cattails?  Nooooo… 

But they were joined by a flock of American Avocets (I think that’s what they are, anyway):

These pictures were all taken with my lens pretty much zoomed out.  I am going to try having some 4×6 prints made to see how they look and how much different the increase in megapixels makes.  It was fun to see the spoonbills today!  They have been pretty elusive this year.

And what am I going to do with my FZ20?  DH spoke for it, so it will be fun to go birding together with our his and hers cameras.  Actually, I want to sneak over there by myself with both cameras and do some comparisons with the two cameras.  Maybe this week.  Before the cold returns. 

–Sue

Or did you play duck, duck, goose as a child?  We see a lot of ducks down here in coastal Texas, and the day these pix were taken, they were hunkered down against the sharp breeze, enjoying a nap.

What really caught my attention, though, was this picture:

Yes, it’s true, ducks close their eyelids.  If you look closely, you can see the bottom eyelid comes up to the top.  Another interesting fact is that ducks have a third eyelid (like many other animals and birds) that closes over the eye from the side.  It’s called a nictitating membrane.  They can see through that third eyelid, which is a good thing when they are flying or diving into the water.

Here you can see it’s a female Northern Shoveler.  Isn’t it interesting how the spots on her beak kind of match the spots on her feathers?  She looks very coordinated and “put together”, so I guess animal prints are still “in”.

Here is the male Northern Shoveler she was hanging out with.  These ducks look a little manic to me — I think it’s the golden eye.

–Sue

I know I’ve said it before, but you never know what you’ll see at the Leonabell Turnbull Birding Center in town.  Some days the birds are few and far between; some days they are almost performing for you.  Some days you see things to make you realize it isn’t always a walk on the beach to be a bird.

The first things I saw were four Black Vultures circling high overhead.  Makes a person stand up a little straighter, trying to look healthy and fit.

After I took this photo, I looked down at my camera, looked back up — and they were GONE!  It was a little Alfred Hitchcock-ish.

I spent some time photographing some ducks that were in close (tomorrow’s pix) before I got to the observation tower and saw the alligator!  We saw him once about four years ago and hadn’t seen him since.

He was making himself quite at home, probably having a little nap, out on a point that is frequented by all kinds of birds.  There are a few ducks hanging back along the water’s edge.  What I noticed after I got this picture up on the computer is the cluster of roseate spoonbills in the tall grass towards the left of the alligator.  I was just hoping the ‘gator didn’t have any pink feathers stuck between his teeth.  I zoomed in on the alligator, but his head was hidden:

Someone there said they heard the ‘gator is 15 feet long, but they were estimating he’s more like 20 feet.  I don’t think it really matters.  He was BIG.

There’s more than one kind of “bird lover” that likes to hang around the birding center!

–Sue

and Last Day to enter.  Yes, you can enter again today even if you entered a comment on a previous day.  Just be sure to enter on this posting.  The drawing by random number generator will be tomorrow (Saturday).

Even though it’s rainy today here at the beach, we’re going to put on a sun-shiney face and finish describing what’s in the give-away bag.

So far we have a spiral notebook, a sachet packet, a wristlet purse, an ornament, notecards, and an exfoliating peppermint foot soap.

The last of the items are the absorbent car coaster (my friend Pat gave me a couple of these one year, and they are pretty neat).  Great in the warm weather when your cold drinks *glisten*.  (We refined girls don’t say “sweat”!)  And then there’s a yard of turquoise fabric with some tiny little swirls highlighted with a touch of gold.  I liked this fabric, and it reminded me of water.

There you have it, that’s the entire Wish-You-Were-Here package!

And DH will be so thrilled when he sees this, but I love this picture.  This is a good memory of warmer times at the beach, but hopefully we will be walking barefoot in the water soon!  (And doesn’t he have great legs?)

Be sure to fill in your e-mail address on the comment form.  (Thank you, Cindy, for taking care of that!)  And you don’t need a blog to enter…

–Sue

In celebration of the 100,000th visit to my blog, I thought a give-away would be in order.  In thinking about a theme, I thought since the whole country has had less than ideal weather this winter, it would be fun to take you all to the beach!  Well, that’s not quite in my budget, so one person will get a package containing some items from the beach town of Port Aransas, Texas.  There are lots of gift shops and fun places to explore in town, and here’s a selection that I’ve put together from my shopping forays:

Last week on Mustang Island, we had some lovely days.  This week we are getting clouds and drizzly rain.  I’m sharing a picture from last week!  I love this time of day, and it really only lasts a few magical minutes.  It’s right before sunset when the sun is really low and just catches the tops of the waves and shades them pink.  Wishing y’all were here — next week when it’s nice again!

–Sue