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
Sandhill Chasing Whooping Crane
While taking pictures of a lone whooping crane, three sandhill cranes came flying in. They apparently thought that they had power in numbers and tried to chase off the whooping crane. It made for some very cool photo op’s. They were almost successful when all of a sudden two other whooping cranes flew in what I thought was an attempt to save the day. In reality, they ended up chasing away the original whooping crane. Go figure…
1/500 sec @ F9, ISO 800, evaluative metering, – 1 1/3 exposure compensation
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II mounted on tripod with Wimberley II gimbal head
Spoonbill Wingspan
Drove down to the Rockport, TX area at the end of April to participate in a workshop with Hector Astorga. We spent two mornings visiting the Aransas NWR rookery by boat. We experienced very high winds and high surf but boat captain Kevin Sims did an excellent job as always. It was quite the roller coaster ride getting to the rookery with three foot waves bouncing the small flat-bottomed boat around in the dark before sunrise.
Once we arrived at the rookery, the waves reduced but the anchor wasn’t successful at keeping the boat still so Kevin put on his waders, jumped into the water and held onto the boat to keep it from moving around. He would then push the boat around manually when we needed to switch positions around the island. He definitely went above and beyond the call of duty on this trip
The rookery was filled with great blue herons and spoonbills, along with a few snowy egrets, reddish egrets, black crowned night herons, oystercatchers and terns. Most of the chicks were fairly large but were still actively being fed by their parents.
Caught this spoonbill coming in for a landing with his wings outstretched while positioned at the upper deck of the boat. With the wind/waves, it was challenging to keep the camera steady on my tripod. Took way too many photos but liked how this one turned out. Very minimal cropping on the right side. Had to crank up the ISO to 3200 to get a decent shutter speed.
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II mounted on tripod with Wimberley II gimbal head
Aperture priority, 1/1000 sec @ F5.6, ISO 3200, evaluative metering, 500mm
Whooping Cranes
Made my first trip to the Rockport, TX area to see the Whooping Cranes a few weeks ago. It’s been on my bucket list forever since I’ve lived in Texas but never made it there until now. Thanks Scott for the invitation.
We took a boat tour with Kevin Sims and he got us very close to the cranes at the Aransas NWR. He has a small flat-bottomed boat that he beaches on the shore to help keep it stable to shoot from with a tripod. With the upper and lower decks, there are plenty of different perspectives to get.
http://texasbirdingphotos.net/
We went out for two mornings in a row but it was cloudy most of the time. I’ll definitely be going back again next year.
Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500MM F4 IS II mounted on tripod with Wimberley gimbal head
1/2500 sec @ F11, ISO 800, evaluative metering, -2/3 exposure compensation
1/1250 sec @ F10, ISO 400, evaluative metering
Tim Timmis Photography 