{"id":3320,"date":"2015-08-12T18:28:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T23:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/?p=3320"},"modified":"2015-08-12T18:28:31","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T23:28:31","slug":"hot-wildlife-photography-at-santa-clara-ranch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/12\/hot-wildlife-photography-at-santa-clara-ranch\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Wildlife Photography at Santa Clara Ranch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Santa Clara Ranch owner, Dr. Alberto “Beto” Gutierrez, called me at lunch yesterday to see if I was interested in heading out to the ranch for an afternoon of photography.\u00a0 At the time, I was comfortably engrossed in a good book and didn’t want to leave the air conditioning.\u00a0\u00a0 Besides, the outside temperature was already hovering at 100 degrees.<\/p>\n

Of course, I threw the book aside, jumped into my field clothes and headed for Beto’s place.\u00a0 We arrived at the ranch around 3:00 PM and\u00a0crawled into the blind to enjoy the 103 degree afternoon.\u00a0 Birds were everywhere and\u00a0everybody needed water.\u00a0 In\u00a0five minutes, we were “blazing” away at various birds, rabbits, ground squirrels and other critters.\u00a0 The photography just got better as the day rocked along and\u00a0things peaked about\u00a06:45 PM when a young bobcat came in for a drink.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By that time, we’d already photographed deer, rabbits, and over a dozen species of birds.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the images we captured on\u00a0that toasty Texas afternoon:\u00a0 click on the photos to make them larger and sharper.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Yellow-billed<\/a>
Yellow-billed Cuckoo landing in granjeno bush, s. Texas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These are the best yellow-billed cuckoo shots I’ve made.\u00a0 These were done with the Canon 7D Mk II, 70-200 mm lens and 1.4X teleconverter, hand held.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow-billed<\/a>
Yellow-billed Cuckoo drinking at ranch pond, s. Texas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Scissor-tailed<\/a>
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher flushing from ranch pond, s. Texas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once we photographed the cuckoo and this scissor-tailed flycatcher, we knew for sure it would be a hot afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"Female<\/a>
Female Bullock’s oriole bathing while a young golden-fronted woodpecker waits its turn in the pond.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Molting<\/a>
Molting golden-fronted woodpecker and a young cardinal sitting in shade on a 102 degree afternoon by the ranch pond.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Greater<\/a>
Greater Roadrunner taking dust bath<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although this roadrunner drank often, it chose a dust bath instead of the wet type.<\/p>\n

\"Groove-billed<\/a>
Groove-billed Ani drinking<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eight anis were among the last birds to arrive at the pond on this afternoon.\u00a0 The group of\u00a0young and molting adults were more\u00a0fun to watch than to photograph.<\/p>\n

\"Groove-billed<\/a>
Groove-billed Anis grooming, s. Texas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"White-tailed<\/a>
White-tail\u00a0does drinking at s. Texas photography ranch (Santa Clara).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These cautious white-tailed deer were all ears as we clicked away while they drank.<\/p>\n

\"Bobcat<\/a>
Bobcat drinking at pond\u00a0just before sunset.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bobcat<\/a>
Bobcat headed into brushy cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This young cat almost walked into the blind after drinking from the nearby pond.\u00a0 We were so excited by this cat that we pretty much forgot about photographing birds for the last half hour of the day.<\/p>\n

As we left the ranch at sunset, the resident pair of Harris’s hawks showed up at the ranch house\u00a0raptor blind, assuming Beto would leave\u00a0a beef kinney\u00a0supper on their favorite\u00a0perch.\u00a0\u00a0 He did.<\/p>\n

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

Santa Clara Ranch owner, Dr. Alberto “Beto” Gutierrez, called me at lunch yesterday to see if I was interested in heading out to the ranch for an afternoon of photography.\u00a0 At the time, I was comfortably engrossed in a good book and didn’t want to leave the air conditioning.\u00a0\u00a0 Besides, the outside temperature was already … Continue reading Hot Wildlife Photography at Santa Clara Ranch<\/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-3320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320","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=3320"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3333,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320\/revisions\/3333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}