The week before Autumn Begins

Last week, I visited some of my favorite habitats in the lower Rio Grande area of Texas to search for wildlife photography opportunities. I hope you like the variety of subjects and life stages depicted.

Blue Spiny Lizards on mesquite bark, s. Texas.

Dr. Beto Gutierrez spotted these guys on a huge mesquite as we traversed his ranch in Starr Co.

Beto and I spent about a half hour beside Dorothy’s Pond on the Santa Clara Photo Ranch that day. The birds weren’t there so we captured a few dragonfly images before heading out. That’s a Thornbush Dasher hovering a Roseate Skimmer.

Screech Owls in nest box at the Gutierrez property.
Lark Sparrow landing at Santa Clara Photo Ranch in late summer.
Ground Squirrel inspecting a dead and bloated mouse.
Big white-tail buck headed to the woods at sunrise.

A week ago, many whitetail bucks were still wearing velvet-covered antlers while some had begun to shed the bloody, furlike skin.

White-tail buck shedding strands of velvet from antlers in late summer.
Big bucks enjoying the early morning sun. * Note the reddish appearance of the hardened antlers on two of these bucks that had just shed their velvet.
White-winged Dove flushing from a water hole.

Autumn starts today and I’m at home working on this report and trying to capture a few hummingbird and flower photos around the house. Let’s save those for next week.

Stay well,

Larry

Early Fall Deer & Wild Turkey in south Texas

I began photographing a few white-tailed deer and wild turkey in late August. Fawns were dropping in July and getting pretty active by August. Meanwhile, the big bucks finished growing new antlers. Late summer is always a magic time when I can capture images of fawns and large bucks at the same time and location. It’s also that time of year when some turkey hens still have young poults.

Here are some photographs from recent weeks:

White-tailed Deer, buck eating huisache leaves, s. Texas.
White-tailed Deer, buck in velvet running through meadow
White-tailed Deer, doe and fawn feeding at sunrise, s. Texas.
Cottontail Rabbit playing with fawn White-tailed Deer.

In the image above, a cottontail rabbit jumps from the grass next to fawn. The rabbits seemed to play tag for a half hour or more with the little deer. On several occasions, they ran between its legs but the grass was too high for me to get a good shot

White-tailed Deer, fawn out for her morning run.
White-tailed Deer, fawn watching large buck in velvet.
White-tailed Deer, large bucks in velvet
Wild Turkey, hen and poult feeding in meadow, s. Texas.
Wild Turkey, poult snapping at mosquitos.

Bucks will be shedding velvet from their antlers for the next two-three weeks and I hope to capture nice shots of that. Maybe I can find some fresh fall migrant birds and autumn wildflowers, too.

Larry

autumn migrants Arriving

In recent weeks, we had migrating birds arriving with the hurricane and with the latest weather fronts. I wasn’t getting out of the house to photograph until I saw a good concentration of hummingbirds Monday on the Fire Bush plants at my son’s house. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I was there for the action.

The following images were made without artificial lighting or any special setup. The bushes were covered in red blooms which made it difficult to isolate birds in flight. Instead, I focused a cluster of blooms with a clean background and pushed the shutter button as birds came to feed.

Here is a small collection of hummers from September 8 and 9:

Ruby-throated Hummingbird female feeding at Fire Bush in s. Texas garden.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird male.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird male at Fire Bush flowers.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird male feeding at Fire Bush, s. Texas gardern.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird, subadult female, autumn, s. Texas.
Subadult Rufous Hummingbird, s. Texas.

If my identification is correct, this is the first Rufous Hummingbird I’ve been able to photograph in the lower Rio Grande area.

I plan to post again in the next day or two with a few deer and turkey shots.

Larry