{"id":2098,"date":"2012-12-23T08:30:51","date_gmt":"2012-12-23T14:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/?p=2098"},"modified":"2012-12-23T16:25:18","modified_gmt":"2012-12-23T22:25:18","slug":"south-texas-critters-in-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/2012\/12\/23\/south-texas-critters-in-december\/","title":{"rendered":"South Texas Critters in December"},"content":{"rendered":"

The weather remains unseasonably warm in south Texas, but we\u00a0had a couple of cool days in December.\u00a0\u00a0I\u00a0drove out\u00a0to the coast\u00a0once just after Thanksgiving\u00a0and\u00a0twice more in the last ten days…just before and after\u00a0last week’s\u00a04-day “sentence” to\u00a0jury duty, ugh.<\/p>\n

I hope you photographers can squeeze in some field time during the holidays.\u00a0 Enjoy the season.<\/p>\n

Click in the upper right area of a photo to open it in a larger format\u00a0with increased sharpness.\u00a0 From there, you can advance through the photos.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Male Aplomado Falcon in flight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I was fortunate to\u00a0locate a pair of endangered Aplomado Falcons\u00a0just after Thanksgiving.\u00a0 They were busy feeding and getting ready to roost when I\u00a0saw them\u00a0at sundown.\u00a0 These photos were done with a Canon 7D and\u00a0500 mm lens from a bean-bag on the car window.\u00a0 The flight shots were done at 1\/2500 second, f 6.3 and ISO 400.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Aplomado Falcon flying past my vehicle window.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Aplomado Falcon back-lighted against green coastal prairie habitat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Male Aplomado Falcon cleaning his beak after feeding on a Hispid Cottonrat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Aplomado Falcon perched on ranch gate as the sun sets in south Texas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Buck white-tailed deer fighting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

I shot\u00a0these white-tailed deer pics with\u00a0the Canon 1D Mark III and Canon 7D cameras and Canon 100-400 mm lens, hand-held.\u00a0 Hand-holding the zoom\u00a0lens\u00a0gives me great flexibility\u00a0for getting into position\u00a0to\u00a0catch\u00a0shots that have to be done in a hurry, often with the buck coming at me.\u00a0 I started at ISO 400 about an hour before sundown and gradually increased the ISO to 800 at sunset.\u00a0 All the while, I was trying to maintain as much shutter speed as possible to\u00a0aid the “image stabilizer” in eliminating lens\/camera vibration.\u00a0 So, my shutter speed decreased from 1\/2000 second to 1\/250 second during that last hour\u00a0of sunlight.<\/p>\n

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Big buck following a doe through back-lighted bluestem grass.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Big whitetail chasing other bucks away from his doe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Wild Turkey toms still wanted to strut their stuff on a warm winter afternoon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Thirteen wild turkey strolled by while\u00a0I was\u00a0photographing deer.\u00a0\u00a0They paused long enough for me make a few images just before sunset.<\/p>\n

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Big turkey tom with feathers glistening in the afternoon sun.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Huge whitetail buck getting the scent of a doe-in-estrus. Note the lip curl.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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This big guy ignored me while he was trailing a doe as the sun was setting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The redhead ducks\u00a0were back on the Laguna Madre around South Padre Island.\u00a0 I was fortunate to catch a few coming\u00a0to the island\u00a0marshes for fresh water.<\/p>\n

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Male redheads brake for a landing in a fresh water marsh.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Drake Redheads landing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I hope you enjoyed these photos.\u00a0 Have a Happy Holiday Season.<\/p>\n

Larry<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weather remains unseasonably warm in south Texas, but we\u00a0had a couple of cool days in December.\u00a0\u00a0I\u00a0drove out\u00a0to the coast\u00a0once just after Thanksgiving\u00a0and\u00a0twice more in the last ten days…just before and after\u00a0last week’s\u00a04-day “sentence” to\u00a0jury duty, ugh. I hope you photographers can squeeze in some field time during the holidays.\u00a0 Enjoy the season. Click in … Continue reading South Texas Critters in December<\/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-2098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098","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=2098"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2116,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions\/2116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}