{"id":1569,"date":"2011-12-21T10:26:57","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T16:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/?p=1569"},"modified":"2011-12-21T10:26:57","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T16:26:57","slug":"blue-jays-whooping-cranes-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/2011\/12\/21\/blue-jays-whooping-cranes-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays, Whooping Cranes and more…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since my last newsletter, the whooping crane instructional photo tour has filled and we need two or three more photographers for\u00a0a second tour on Thursday and Friday, January 12-13.\u00a0 If you can go, give me a call or email.<\/p>\n

\"Young<\/a>
Young Whooping Crane feeding in marsh at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
As you can see by the photo above, we get pretty close to these extremely rare birds during most of our tours.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Adult<\/a>
Adult whooping crane landing in marsh at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
There will be other bird and landscape photography opportunities during the whooping crane photo tours. Great blue herons, various warblers, brown pelicans, long-billed curlews, American oystercatchers, osprey and other birds are some of our more common photo subjects when we aren’t photographing whoopers.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Great<\/a>
Great blue heron at Port Aransas, Texas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Pair<\/a>
Pair of whooping cranes at take off, Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Last week, I spent a few days in Wichita Falls with relatives.\u00a0 That gave me some time to work on backyard birds like blue jays, cardinals and sparrows.\u00a0 I\u00a0simply had\u00a0to prepare a natural looking set\u00a0that included\u00a0a nice stump, a\u00a0vine, and some oak leaves with\u00a0autumn color thrown in for good measure.\u00a0 Within 10 minutes, the birds were arriving and I spent much of two afternoons shooting.<\/div>\n
Low, heavy clouds and rain hampered my efforts a little, but the fill flash helped boost the colors and give the birds some “eye shine”.\u00a0 Here are several samples of what I got.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Blue<\/a>
Blue jay perched on a stump.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
I tried shooting with a blooming rose bush in the background, but the red flower was a bit much, so it was removed for most of the shooting.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Blue<\/a>
Blue Jay scolding sparrows.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Blue<\/a>
Blue Jay eating acorn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Two<\/a>
Two blue jays share a feeding stump.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Blue<\/a>
Blue Jay landing on stump.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Blue<\/a>
Blue jay landing on a rotting stump.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"Adult<\/a>
Adult white-crowned sparrow landing at feeding stump.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
When I’m hanging around home, I visit some of the area photography ranches.\u00a0 As most you know, one never gets all the shots one needs, no matter how common the subject.\u00a0 I continue trying to get great shot of birds like verdin, Harris’s hawk and yellow-rumped warbler.\u00a0 I got these shots about three weeks ago.<\/div>\n
\n
\"Yellow-rumped<\/a>
Yellow-rumped warbler bathing at a ranch pond.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"Verdin<\/a>
Verdin perched in a bougainvilla bush.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Landing<\/a>
Landing Harris's Hawk on south Texas ranch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
So, this is what I’ve been up to.\u00a0 Join me for whooping cranes or south Texas birds after the\u00a0holidays (lditto@larryditto.com<\/a> or 956-682-3251).<\/div>\n
Merry Christmas,<\/div>\n
Larry<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since my last newsletter, the whooping crane instructional photo tour has filled and we need two or three more photographers for\u00a0a second tour on Thursday and Friday, January 12-13.\u00a0 If you can go, give me a call or email. As you can see by the photo above, we get pretty close to these extremely rare … Continue reading Blue Jays, Whooping Cranes and more…<\/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-1569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1569","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=1569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1588,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1569\/revisions\/1588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}