Usually photography during the heat of a Texas summer afternoon are not going to be terribly good. However, when I saw this Spoonbill near shore feeding I thought I would give it a shot anyway. As the sun was directly behind me, the bird lit up perfectly and brought out its rosy pink colors wonderfully.
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I photographed this bird on Lake Michigan in the southwestern corner of the state.
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I have seen Band-tailed Pigeons twice before. Once flying away a few hundred yards in the distance; another time a hundred feet up in tall trees (obviously) behind other tall trees. This time was different.
A birder in Colorado Springs had invited me to his house to photograph hummingbirds. Once there, he mentioned that a group of BTPs would hit the trees and feeders on the hillside behind his house. What a gift!
These are very skittish birds; they will fly away at the slightest imposition. I was happy with this shot in the 6 AM hour because the sun was hitting the tree and the birds and traffic and the general business of morning had not yet fully set in.
I don't imagine I will ever encounter a better opportunity with this great Western bird.
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I have found and photographed an LBC only twice, and both times in the exact same place. That place is Bird Island Basin on Padre Island. This bird enjoys a range that extends most of the western half of the US. It winters, though, on the Gulf Coast, which accounts for it being where I found it in mid-summer. Perhaps these few birds never left or hadn't traveled that far for breeding.
Whatever the case may be, Padre Island, the part accessible from Corpus Christie, is a great place to visit for shorebirds at any time of the year.
I captured this image in the evening once the harsh daylight sun had disappeared for the day.
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My previous shots of this charming woodpecker are reasonably good. But I never like the sharp angles or the backdrop of those images.
Then one of my bird photographer friends told me he had a pair of RHWPs coming to his yard. In Northern Michigan, this is rare. I have seen them up here, but only as a forest flyby. I have never had them in my yard or heard them anywhere nearby.
The short of it is that he invited me over to his house for the day. I simply sat on his porch and shot away.
Even more unusual, they bred a trio of youngsters.
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