Spoonbills
I’m used to finding Spoonbills flying around or nesting at the High Island rookery, so it was a nice change of pace to find a couple of them in the water at Bryan Beach a few weeks ago. Only minor cropping on these as they were fairly close at 400 mm.
Taken with Canon 7D and 100-400 lens on ground pod.
1/1250 sec @ F7.1, spot metering, ISO 250, no flash
1/1250 sec @ F7.1, spot metering, ISO 250, no flash
1/1000 sec @ F7.1, spot metering, ISO 250, no flash
Tricolored Herons
Another batch of shots from Bryan Beach, TX. This time featuring some Tricolored Herons. These are one of my favorite birds to shoot. My first decent bird shot was of these. These guys were fishing right in front of me while I was laying prone with my ground pod. Makes the stiff neck and back worth it sometimes.
Taken with Canon 7D and 100-400 lens.
Reddish Egret Fishing
Here are a few Reddish Egret shots from Bryan Beach, TX taken about 3 weeks ago. It was a very windy day and slightly overcast. Got there late as I took the long way around via Bolivar and San Luis Pass. Nothing going on around there so I kept going west. Glad that I did. Lots of activity that day with a couple of Reddish Egrets dancing around. Haven’t seen them since but got lucky that day. It’s always cool to see how they fish with them raising their wings up in the air to scare the fish. They are excellent fisherman and can fill up while other birds just stand around and watch. Their eyes must be better than mine.
Windy days can be a challenge but also rewarding. You can see the wind blowing the water in the second shot and the egret leaning into the wind on the last two.
Taken with Canon 7D and 100-400 lens
Black Skimmers
I’ve been hanging out at Bryan Beach for the past few weeks trying to catch some Skimmer action like I got in 2009. They finally showed up this past weekend and let me get a few shots before flying off. They didn’t stick around long but I had enough time to get off a few passes of shots.
It’s a challenge to shoot birds flying that fast with a ground pod while laying on your stomach. I tried hand holding the camera with my elbows planted in the muck but that didn’t work any better. Just had to shift the ground pod around as they changed direction. I messed up by trying to use four focus points and lost the focus on several shots. Finally woke up and switched to only single point focus which worked much better. It was cool when they would fly directly at me.
Taken with Canon 7D and 100-400 lens on ground pod, no flash.
Snowy Egret in Morning Light
Enough with the camera drama, time to share some pictures. Here is a Snowy Egret shot from today’s outing at Bryan Beach. He was strutting along right in front of me with decent morning light. Used spot metering to keep the whites from blowing out.
Taken with Canon 7D and 100-400 lens
1/1600 sec @ F5.6, + 2/3 exposure compensation, ISO 250, spot metering
Self Healing 7D?
I decided after my 7D started showing error 20 last weekend that I’d live with taking my battery in/out for a few weeks before sending it back to Canon for the 3rd time. It’s prime time at the coast and I didn’t want to be without a camera for another couple of weeks. Went out on Sat morning and shot around 1200 pictures and it only locked the mirror up about 10 times early during the shoot. Went out again today and took about 1700 shots and no issues what so ever. Not sure if it was a fluke or if the shutter needed some breaking-in time. What ever the case, I’m going to keep using it until the problem comes back. Hopefully it won’t. Probably wishful thinking on my part…
Update: my 7D is still working OK after several outings and several thousand shots. Not going to send it back again.
Spoonbill Silhouette
Here is an early morning silhouette of a Roseate Spoonbill at the High Island rookery in Texas. I’m a big fan of silhouettes so you may see a few of them on my blog.
Taken with Canon 7D and 100-400 lens
1/4000 sec @ F5.0, spot metering, ISO 400, at 250mm.
7D Saga Continues
I thought that the second time that I sent my 7D back to Canon for service would be last, but I was sadly mistaken. Got the camera back a week ago from Canon and they replaced the same “mirror box assembly” as they did the first time. Took it out on Friday to shoot and everything was looking good for about 600 shots and then it started acting up again with the same error 20 message and locked up mirror. Hoping that the 3rd time is really the charm. I love this camera but this is getting old very fast.
Mating Terns
Here is a shot of some Terns mating just after sunrise from Bryan Beach, TX. This is where a high frames/sec camera comes in handy. Got several shots but only one with the wings spread like this.
Taken with Canon 7D and 100-400 lens with ground pod.
1/640 sec @ F5.6, ISO 200, spot metering, no flash
My Back-up 40D Died
Had my back-up camera die this weekend while waiting for my 7D to be repaired. Not unexpected however. The shutter on my 40D was sounding real funky about a year ago which led to my 7D upgrade. I had already replaced the shutter once. It completely crashed this weekend while taking some shorebird photos. Hoping to get my 7D back this week. Still waiting on the e-mail from Canon to say that it shipped. Not sure if I’ll put $216 into the old 40D or not to repair it.
Tim Timmis Photography 