{"id":1160,"date":"2011-02-14T10:10:52","date_gmt":"2011-02-14T16:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/?p=1160"},"modified":"2011-02-14T10:51:49","modified_gmt":"2011-02-14T16:51:49","slug":"shooting-the-texas-tundra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/2011\/02\/14\/shooting-the-texas-tundra\/","title":{"rendered":"Shooting the Texas Tundra"},"content":{"rendered":"

My wife and I spent last week trying to stay warm while visiting her mother in\u00a0Wichita Falls, Texas.\u00a0 Being the tough guy that I am,\u00a0I spent\u00a0all\u00a0day\u00a0Wednesday\u00a0photographing from\u00a0Dottie’s garage with the door open, no heat,\u00a0and facing into that cold north wind.\u00a0 About 2″ of snow fell the night before and the temperature hovered around\u00a020 degrees all day…the wind chill was around 10 degrees.\u00a0 On the brighter side, a good variety of birds\u00a0were foraging about her neighborhood\u00a0for any available food.\u00a0 I pitched out some sunflower seeds and bread crumbs and the birds responded.\u00a0 So, here is what you can get after a snow in north Texas (if you can bear the cold).<\/p>\n

Click on the photo to make it expand and sharpen for better viewing.\u00a0 Click in the upper right portion of the photo to advance to the next shot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Barking<\/a>
Barking black-tailed prairie dog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0I found these prairie dogs (one is peaking out of the burrow) the day before the snow as\u00a0they\u00a0enjoyed the sunshine on a blustery, 30 degree day.\u00a0\u00a0The “dogs”\u00a0must have sensed that the following day would bring\u00a0a\u00a0blanket of snow, so they were quite active.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/a>
Blue Jay with pecan on a snow-covered tree limb.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
This blue jay photo was my very first shot of the morning.\u00a0 When I checked the camera’s screen, I knew it would be a good day.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Dark-eyed<\/a>
Dark-eyed Junco with snow in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Another<\/a>
Another dark-eyed junco searching for seeds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Dark-eyed Juncos\u00a0seemed to be\u00a0the most common birds visiting Wichita Falls during the cold spell.\u00a0 These birds spend their summers in\u00a0Canada and the northern U.S. and come our way when winter weather drives them south.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Downy<\/a>
Downy Woodpecker on a snow-covered cedar elm branch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
The rough bark on a cedar elm just outside the garage door must\u00a0have\u00a0been prime habitat for\u00a0many forms of invertebrates because\u00a0several species of birds, \u00a0including this Downy Woodpecker and a Red-breasted Nuthatch, spent hours feeding in it.<\/div>\n
\n
\"One<\/a>
One of the few times this red-breasted nuthatch wasn't walking the underside of limbs searching for food.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"This<\/a>
This white-crowned sparrow kept his feathers puffed out to hold in the body heat...much like wearing a down jacket.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Last week, north Texas was like a frozen tundra.\u00a0 Thousands of birds were working the\u00a0woodlots and backyards looking for food and shelter.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Blue<\/a>
Blue Jay launching into flight after checking this perch for seeds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
The snow made a perfect backdrop for bird photography.\u00a0 The blue areas in the background are tree shadows falling on the snow.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Two<\/a>
Several Northern Cardinals spent the day scratching for seeds and perching on a nearby fence.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Birds frequently perched on this fence which had some dried vines hanging on it.\u00a0 It was a perfect set and I didn’t have to do a thing to improve it.\u00a0 Finding nice perches to do\u00a0impromptu bird photography in a\u00a0tidy urban setting isn’t easy, so I was lucky .<\/div>\n
\n
\"European<\/a>
European Starlings may be pests but they are beautifully marked.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\"How<\/a>
How to get hungry birds to perch up? ...scatter some bread crumbs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Carolina<\/a>
Carolina Wren searching for food on my perch stump.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0Three years ago, my father-in-law dragged this old stump to the back yard fence and left it. \u00a0 Lucky for me, he never got around to putting it in the alley for removal, so\u00a0it had weathered nicely and made an excellent feeding station and bird perch.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\"Fallen<\/a>
Fallen oak leaves and a thin snow cover make a great composition with this foraging male Northern Cardinal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0These\u00a0 photos were taken with the Canon 7D camera and 500 mm IS lens.\u00a0 A 1.4 X teleconverter was inserted for the small birds, but the prime lens was all I needed for the cardinals, starlings and blue jays.\u00a0 Most of the shots were taken at ISO 400 or 500, usually at 1\/1600 second or better,\u00a0and +2\/3 of an f stop to compensate for the white background.<\/p><\/div>\n

***\u00a0<\/span>It is time to plan your next photo tour for this spring, so\u00a0take a minute to\u00a0a look at the\u00a0tour schedule on this web site.\u00a0 The Hoak Ranch Workshop near Ozona still has some openings as do the Caddo Lake and South Padre Island photo tours.\u00a0 Each is in a scenic location where you can get some beautiful photographs while learning new tricks to improve your nature photography (scenic and wildlife) and Photoshoping.<\/div>\n
\n
\"It<\/a>
It was too cold and distrubing to the birds for me to add some greenery around this perch for color.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Wishing you a good week,<\/div>\n
Larry<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My wife and I spent last week trying to stay warm while visiting her mother in\u00a0Wichita Falls, Texas.\u00a0 Being the tough guy that I am,\u00a0I spent\u00a0all\u00a0day\u00a0Wednesday\u00a0photographing from\u00a0Dottie’s garage with the door open, no heat,\u00a0and facing into that cold north wind.\u00a0 About 2″ of snow fell the night before and the temperature hovered around\u00a020 degrees all … Continue reading Shooting the Texas Tundra<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1160"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1181,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160\/revisions\/1181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}