While taking photos from my ground pod at Bolivar Flats, several hundred black skimmers were hanging out near the jetty. It was difficult to see what kind of birds were there until you hear them “barking”. They eventually lifted off and formed a cloud of skimmers, which is always cool to see.
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4X III teleconverter mounted on Skimmer ground pod with Wimberley II gimbal head
1/800 sec @ F9, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation
Sometimes the stars align (no wind, no waves, low tide) along the Gulf of Mexico and the waters are very calm at Bolivar Flats, which makes for some amazing conditions for shore bird photography. This happened on Friday when I took some vacation time to get back to Bolivar for the first time in 4 months.
Got very excited when driving onto the beach while seeing the calm water. This happens maybe once a year if you are lucky, from my experience. Pulled up to the parking area on the beach with nobody else in site and quickly geared up before the sun came up. It was 41 deg F and my neoprene waders felt nice and toasty.
Found a small group of American Avocets along the shoreline and laid down with my ground pod for some silhouette shots. Also had some photo op’s further out in the water with pelicans and black skimmers flying by. The sun popped up which led to some interesting photo op’s with the changing light.
Got up from my initial position and turned to my right just in time to see a peregrine falcon taking off from the beach. Wish that I had seen him earlier but he was very skittish and getting close to him would have been very challenging. Was able to get some flight shots as he flew by, which is always fun with hand holding a 500mm lens attached to a ground pod with a Wimberley gimbal head.
Moved offshore onto some sandbars to take photos of willets, long billed curlews, more avocets and hundreds of black skimmers that would periodically blast off and fill the sky. On the way back to my car, a reddish egret landed right behind me so got back down on the sand for some very close-up shots which was a great wrap up to a wonderful morning.
Needless to say, it was great to be back at Bolivar in perfect conditions.
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II and 1.4X III mounted on a Skimmer ground pod with Wimberley II gimbal head.
1/1600 sec @ F8, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation
This post is dedicated to all veterans past and present. Thank you for your sacrifices.
These are photos of the Blue Angels from 2018 Wings Over Houston airshow on Sunday Oct 21.
Taken with Canon 1DX with Canon 100-400 II lens, handheld
1/1600 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +2/3 exposure compensation, aperture priority
1/2000 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, aperture priority
1/2500 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, aperture priority
1/2500 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, aperture priority
1/2000 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, aperture priority
1/2500 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, aperture priority
1/3200 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, aperture priority, converted to B&W using NIK Silver Effects Pro
1/2500 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, aperture priority
This Marbled Godwit walked very close to us at Bolivar Flats on the same day as we found the white morph reddish egret. He kept probing the sand for food.
I like this shot as he is facing in my direction, the position of his feet, got some interesting lighting on his bill and the raised tail feathers, which isn’t typical from my experience.
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4X III teleconverter mounted on Skimmer ground pod with Wimberley II gimbal head.
1/640 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation
1/800 sec @ F8, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation
Finally made it back to Bolivar Flats yesterday after a long hiatus (since April). Got invited to head to the flats by Lea, who contacted me back in May for some advice. It was a good time and I needed the motivation to get back out there in this heat. Feels-like temp when we arrived just before sunrise was 95 deg F. Decided to not wear my waders or jacket and just get all wet/sandy, which happened as predicted.
There were lots of birds around including reddish egrets, pelicans, willets, long-billed curlews, marbled godwits. Did not see any avocets. We spotted 2 reddish egrets and 3 white morph reddish egrets in the area and took some time to photograph them and get closer to this one. They weren’t very active but we had the opportunity to get some decent shots of them posing and preening.
Reddish egrets will puff out their feathers when they are trying to intimidate other birds. Not sure what got this one excited but it made for nice looking hairdo.
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4X III teleconverter mounted on Skimmer ground pod with Wimberley II gimbal head
Reddish egret are quite the fishing experts. This white morph put on a great display of fishing prowess and ended up catching this fish and looked in my direction.
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4X III teleconverter mounted on Skimmer ground pod with Wimberley II gimbal head.
1/1600 sec @ F9, ISO 1600, +1 exposure compensation
This white morph reddish egret was practicing his jumping skills at Galveston’s FeatherFest in April. This was shot #11 out of a series of 16 photos that he was in the air.
Colors were somewhat muted so I converted into B&W using NIK Silver Effects.
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II mounted on Skimmer ground pod with Wimberley II gimbal head
1/1250 sec @ F9, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation
