Tim Timmis Photography

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Galveston FeatherFest 2018

As another year at Galveston’s FeatherFest comes to a close, thanks go out to everyone who participated this year. Special thanks to JulieAnn Brown, Executive Director from Galveston Island Nature Tourism Council, and her flock of 200 volunteers that make the event possible every year.

Had a great time leading three field trips and three classroom workshops again this year. This was year #6 for me as a leader and can’t wait to do it again.

Extremely high winds on Friday and Saturday mornings provided some challenges but the birds and rain cooperated. We had a flock of black skimmers and beautiful sunrise at East Beach on Friday, a few thousand avocets in breeding plumage on Saturday morning at Bolivar Flats and a white morph reddish egret dancing away right in front of us this morning.

Here are some group photos from today’s Ground Level Bird Photography field trip to Bolivar Flats. They received the full ground pod treatment including laying in some prime-time muck. Thanks again Chris for helping out again this year.
I’ll post more photos later as time permits.

For the participants that would like a full size copy, I’ve posted it on my website that you can copy them from:

https://www.timtimmis.com/Wildlife/Galveston-FeatherFest-2018/

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Posted by Tim Timmis | April 22, 2018 | Categories: Birds | Tags: Bolivar Flats, Galveston FeatherFest, ground level bird photography, ground pod photography | Leave a comment

Reddish Egret Dancing

While getting prepared for leading workshops at Galveston’s FeatherFest again this year, went back over some photos from last years event and found this one taken at Bolivar Flats. This reddish egret was dancing around and put on a great show for my group.

Wasn’t sure why the two birds were hanging out together until observing interesting behavior a few weeks later when a pelican kept stealing fish from a reddish egret. Whatever works for getting breakfast.

Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4X III teleconverter mounted on a Skimmer ground pod with a Wimberley II gimbal head

1/2500 sec @ F5.6, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation

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Posted by Tim Timmis | April 8, 2018 | Categories: Birds | Tags: Bolivar Flats, Brown Pelican, Dancing egret, Galveston's FeatherFest, Reddish Egret, Texas Gulf Coast | 2 Comments

Brown Pelicans in a Blur

I’ve been in a major creative funk lately with it being several weeks since I’ve gone out to take wildlife photos. Life gets in the way sometimes with business travel, some dental issues, lots to do around the house and getting a new computer. I’ve been working on a blog post about my journey to find a new computer and will share that later. Also the weather in SE Texas hasn’t been cooperating on weekends for the last 8 weeks or so.

Decided to go to the Texas City Dike a couple of weeks ago to create some abstract wildlife photos with some slow shutter speeds. Made it to the dike before sunrise and waited until I could focus on brown pelicans that were diving for fish.

Used shutter priority to slow the action down while creating some interesting blurs. It’s fun but challenging to try this technique. You won’t get the same photo twice as each shot is dependent on how fast you are panning with the bird and what the bird is doing, which is part of the fun. Went back the following weekend to crank it down even further to 1/10 sec.

Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4X III teleconverter, handheld out my car window

Shutter priority, 1/15 sec @ F5.6, ISO 3200, evaluative metering, +2 exposure compensation

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Shutter priority, 1/20 sec @ F11, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 1/3 exposure compensation

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Shutter priority, 1/20 sec @ F8, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, +1 1/3 exposure compensation

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Posted by Tim Timmis | April 1, 2018 | Categories: Birds | Tags: birds in flight, blurred birds in flight, blurred photos, Brown Pelican, Canon 1.4X III teleconverter, Canon 1DX, Canon 500mm F4 IS II | 3 Comments

Whooping Crane

Spent this past weekend in Rockport, TX trying to find Whooping Crane at Aransas NWR via a boat with Kevin Sims. Had a great time as always. Thanks again Scott for the invite.

Saturday with very foggy and had to start late and tried to wait out the fog. No luck with that strategy, so Kevin worked the shoreline. We found three whooping cranes that were looking for crabs in a small pond close to the shoreline. We got very luck as they worked their way towards us and ended up walking out of the pond and got very close. Ended up having to taking off my 1.4X teleconverter as I was only getting head shots. A great problem to have when shooting whooping cranes.

Got this stare down from the juvenile crane. They stuck around for about 1/2 hour and then walked away. Was a great experience.

Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II lens mounted on tripod with Wimberley II gimbal head

1/500 sec @ F9, ISO 1600, spot metering, +2/3 exposure compensation

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Posted by Tim Timmis | February 19, 2018 | Categories: Birds | Tags: Aransas NWR, Canon 1DX, Canon 500mm F4 IS II, Fog, juvenile whooping crane, whooping crane, Wimberley II | Leave a comment

Yellowstone in Winter 2018 – Day 2

Day 2 in Yellowstone confirmed our suspicion that the wounded bison didn’t make it as a new carcass was discovered about 25 yds from the tree where we left her the day before. As we approached the area, several wolves were crossing the road in front of us about 50 yds away. It was too dark to take photos so we got out our cell phones for some video. They went up the hill to our left to bed down with their full stomachs.

We kept pushing forward in search of frosty bison as the temperature had dipped to – 18 deg F in the park just after sunrise. We headed towards Old Faithful and found a lone bison with some decent frost on him and got some full frame shots. Kept going and found several bison a little further off of the road so we stopped to take some photos. Some hiking out into the now put us in position to get some cool shots of the group. We later found a group of bison heading towards us walking down the road that were back-lit so we bailed out of the snowcoach again. We worked along the Madison River on our way back to the wolves.

1/800 sec @ F6.3, ISO 2500, manual mode with spot metering off of the snow + 2 stops

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1/500 sec @ F6.3, ISO 800, manual mode

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We spotted a lone wolf at the top of the hill lying down resting with his head raised and paws out in front of him. He looked like a big puppy dot and was sleepy from having a full belly. We photographed him for quite a while until he got up and moved.