{"id":3683,"date":"2016-04-19T09:28:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T14:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/?p=3683"},"modified":"2016-04-19T09:28:48","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T14:28:48","slug":"last-week-around-the-texas-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/2016\/04\/19\/last-week-around-the-texas-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Week Around the Texas Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week at\u00a0Galveston’s nature festival,\u00a0FeatherFest, I helped\u00a0lead several wildlife photography field trips and seminars.\u00a0\u00a0 It was my fifth\u00a0festival and each year I\u00a0share in the fun of photographing birds and landscapes along the coast from Rockport to High Island\u00a0at the upper end of\u00a0Bolivar Peninsula.\u00a0 The following collection of images\u00a0is\u00a0offered to give you a\u00a0glimpse at the diversity of\u00a0Texas coastal birdlife during\u00a0spring migration and nesting:<\/p>\n

Be sure to click on the first photo to enlarge and sharpen for viewing.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Roseate<\/a>
Roseate Spoonbill spreading its wings for a soft landing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The weather on most mornings during FeatherFest\u00a0 was gloomy, but colorful birds and intense bird breeding activity\u00a0livened the scene.\u00a0 Most of these images were made with a Canon 7D Mark II and 100-400 mm lens, handheld.\u00a0 For the spoonbill, the camera settings were 1\/1600 sec @ f5.6 and ISO 800.<\/p>\n

\"Reddish<\/a>
Reddish Egrets in breeding plumage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Great<\/a>
Great Egrets pair displaying at nest with young.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The highlight of our photography sessions was a trip to High Island and the Audubon Sanctuary there where thousands of herons, egrets, ibis and spoonbills nest.<\/p>\n

\"Roseate<\/a>
Roseate Spoonbill with nest building material.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Laughing<\/a>
Laughing Gulls mating amid wildflowers in a Rockport city park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Caracara<\/a>
Caracara searching for gull nests among the wildflowers in Rockport.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I first saw this crested caracara walking amid hundreds of laughing gulls resting on the ground in a\u00a0beautiful landscape of Rockport wildflowers.\u00a0 Eventually, it gave up on finding\u00a0an easy meal and flew directly at me.\u00a0 The Canon AI Servo worked perfectly in predicting the bird’s approach and holding focus for several frames.<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/a>
Great Blue Heron in flight over Aransas Bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our\u00a0 photo group captured many species and thousands of images from a boat at\u00a0Aransas and Galveston Bays.<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/a>
Great Egret landing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Great<\/a>
Great Egret displaying its plume feathers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Forster's<\/a>
Forster’s Terns bonding on the boardwalk at the Port Aransas Birding Center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At Port Aransas we\u00a0encountered a mini-fallout of migrating birds\u00a0forced\u00a0to ground\u00a0by an approaching coastal cold front during\u00a0their northward flight across the U.S.<\/p>\n

\"Black-throated<\/a>
Black-throated Green Warbler male feeding on insects.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Scarlet<\/a>
Scarlet Tanager male in a mulberry tree.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Least<\/a>
Least Bittern with fish in the cattails at Port Aransas Birding Center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Purple<\/a>
Purple Gallinule eating grass seeds at the High Island Sanctuary.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sunlight<\/a>
Sunlight on seagull wings and tails in Galveston Bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Brown<\/a>
Brown Pelicans in flight over Galveston Bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On my last evening in Galveston, our group got to see thousands of gulls and brown pelicans swarming over their nesting islands as the sun sank.<\/p>\n

\"Brown<\/a>
Brown Pelicans and laughing gulls at sunset on Galveston Bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you are a photographer, think hard about joining some of the photography sessions at FeatherFest next April.<\/p>\n

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

Last week at\u00a0Galveston’s nature festival,\u00a0FeatherFest, I helped\u00a0lead several wildlife photography field trips and seminars.\u00a0\u00a0 It was my fifth\u00a0festival and each year I\u00a0share in the fun of photographing birds and landscapes along the coast from Rockport to High Island\u00a0at the upper end of\u00a0Bolivar Peninsula.\u00a0 The following collection of images\u00a0is\u00a0offered to give you a\u00a0glimpse at the diversity … Continue reading Last Week Around the Texas Coast<\/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-3683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683","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=3683"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3708,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions\/3708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}