I spent 5 glorious days in the lower Rio Grande Valley and visited many hotspots, but none would compare to Estero Llano Grande State Park, with one cool moment after another; not so cool, however, if you were the local garter snake that got gobbled up by a young gator; nor if you were a tadpole changing into a frog, when that darn Least Grebe had you for dinner. The staff at Estero Llano could not have been more helpful or professional, and the place is set up perfectly for photography, with lots of friendly, acclimated birds. Tons of flowers and butterflies too! The Green Kingfisher has eluded me for eons, but not on this trip…. One of my favorite “God Moments” (which were daily on this trip!) was a friendly couple telling me that they had just photographed a Green Kingfisher at a nearby park, the Frontera Audubon Sanctuary. How could they have possibly known what an invaluable tip this would be!!! They didn’t, but God knew what I was looking for, and offered a little miracle that morning! …. and that Green Kingfisher was just where I was told it would be, at that little pond 10 miles away, waiting for my rendezvous with destiny!

The Valley is famous for outlandish songbirds like the Green Jay and Altamira Oriole, and I would finally meet these show-stoppers. Speaking of Orioles, I experienced a mini Fallout of at least 8 Baltimore and Orchard Orioles feeding at a tiny wetland in Port Aransas the morning after a wicked storm that dropped a bunch of migrating songbirds from the tropics who were drenched and famished after the storm and fueled up at Paradise Pond on the coast, their first landfall with tons of bugs to eat. I actually got lots of shots of Orioles with tiny bugs in their mouths…. great fun, especially considering that the mosquitoes nailed me just as bad as the bed bugs on this trip. This wildlife photography is not so glamorous, folks!!

The highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the Roseate Spoonbills at an un-named island a few miles off the Texas mid-Coast…. I call this place “Magic Island.” My Whooping Crane guide from 12 years ago told me about Magic Island with all of its nesting Spoonbills and Reddish Egrets, which can either be brownish or snow white, but both with gorgeous pink and powder-blue bills and shaggy plumes during the breeding season. I never forgot about Magic Island all those years and dreamed of a future chance to visit, which finally happened this April. My faithful captain and I spent 3 mornings at the colony, shooting from the boat, as landing on the tiny island is forbidden. The spoonbill photography was out of this world, and the light was favorable. I was able to document several aerial fight sequences among the egrets, which only last for a few seconds at most, so if you don’t get the lens on the birds in about 2 seconds (while the boat is heaving in the choppy surf) then you completely missed the opportunity. This was the Super Bowl of Flight photography, and my years of practice really paid off. I finished the trip at High Island, where there is a wonderful rookery with lots of Spoonbills that can be photographed from close observation decks, but drink lots of fluids to help replenish the gallon of blood that will be sacrificed to the attendant mosquitoes! On my last day I was able to make wispy slow motion pans of flying Spooners….. one turned out dreamy.

Thank you God for one of the most amazing trips of my life….. I felt your hand over every shoot, and with all of the wonderful people I met along the way. What a joy and honor to explore your bountiful Creation!

I just wanted to share a few favorite images from my recent trip to Utah last week. While the main target for the workshop that I attended was Bald Eagles, they were few and far between at Farmington Bay along the Great Salt Lake due to the warm weather. Regardless the scenery was breathtaking with snow-capped mountains surrounding the lake. And there were plenty of birds to photograph….

My main interest was the Grey Ghost, the nickname for the male Northern Harrier, a most stunning raptor that can be seen consistently in special places like Farmington Bay, but close-up flight photos are a long shot as the birds canvas huge swaths of marsh and field when listening for mice stirring below. On a good day the bird may be in camera range for all of 15 seconds…. and I did get a quick fly-by on the second day of the shoot and was thrilled but was hoping for more of a habitat shot. By the Grace of God a conversation was struck up with another photographer at Farmington who spoke of great concentrations of harriers and other raptors on Antelope Island, not too far away, a state park within the Great Salt Lake accessed by a long narrow causeway where I was told harriers would be patrolling.

Sure enough, we spotted 3 Grey Ghosts cruising the strip but they would veer off when the car approached. The next day we tried again and this time I spotted a male drop down in the brush along the road and was determined to find him as he may have a mouse! Fortunately he picked a spot to eat his mouse in front of a bush and not behind as we would not have been able to see him from the shoulder. Before this I was able to pull the car over and let him approach the car while I got some nice flight shots of hunting low to the ground. Getting close-ups of the Grey Ghost was an answer to a prayer launched almost 2 decades ago!

All in all it was a most memorable trip to Utah….. loads of singing Meadowlarks, Kestrels everywhere, my first Rough-legged Hawk, flocks of Starlings landing on the backs of Bison grazing on Antelope Island (and yes there were pronghorn here too!), California Gulls snatching fish from the marsh, and thousands of Tundra Swans making a pit stop at Bear River NWR on their early northbound migration. Thank you God, once again!

The tundra itself was less fun to shoot as the birds were pretty spread out. Twice our group leaders found nesting Willow Ptarmigan
for the group to shoot. The male would stick around as long as his hen did not take flight, with eggs nearby. They make the goofiest
calls, not unlike the frog-mouthed game booth heckler you’d hear along the midway at the fair. The tundra was loaded with songbirds, none more
pleasant to the eye than the ubiquitous Yellow Warbler, a denizen of the willows. Shorebirds are skittish on their nesting grounds, trying
to camouflage precious eggs amidst the short grasses. Tons of loons nest on the shallow tundra lakes, and we finally found a trio of unpaired
yearlings who responded well to Glenn playing Pacific Loon calls. Their velvety pearl gray heads are positively sublime! All in all, an outstanding
trip with blessings every day, and the best Arctic Tern photography of my life! Next year I’m off to Cambridge Bay in the Canadian high Arctic for
yet another round! Thank you for sharing in these amazing birds! God bless!

My primary interest was ducks in flight, and Glenn, an accomplished Canadian photographer and tour leader, had just the spot. At Esquimalt Lagoon, the Northern Pintail, Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye and American Wigeon are quite acclimated to the locals, especially those with food! With the sun at our backs on two mornings, the ducks were “run” between two feeding stations while we clicked away hundreds of flight images. The pintails were full frame! The divers were not quite as predictable, but on a few occasions we had Bufflehead and Goldeneye flying in for the feeding frenzy. It was especially challenging to keep the tiny and supersonic Bufflehead in the frame. To my delight a few frames were sharp and captured the drake’s purple and green iridescence. Thank you God!

Esquimalt Lagoon is also home to swans, mostly the orange-billed Mute Swan, a native of Europe. Several pairs were engaged in courtship display, arching their angelic white wings over the back. In one split second, the heads of one pair crossed to form a heart, a most fitting symbol for these lovebirds! A lone Trumpeter Swan also winters on the lagoon, and he gave me a glorious wingflap sequence while preening on the beach. I love all the detail in the whites, something that digital photography highlights beautifully.

Before the group tour commenced I made a solo journey to Qualicum Beach (about two hours north by car) where Glenn said that I would likely encounter all three scoter species at close range. Just as I arrived for the noon high tide, the gray skies parted and the sun broke out, turning the flat water a heavenly blue which is very important for photographing mostly black ducks. At Qualicum there’s plenty of shellfish, and the ducks are used to locals walking on the beach, so I was able to position myself to intercept the rafts of mostly Black Scoters fishing the shallows. Several White-winged Scoters also joined in and surfaced with big clams in their bills. This I waited a long time to see, as I remember passing a raft of scoters in California, but too far away to shoot. Those big orange knobs on their bills are dashing, but little did I know that I would have to wait 12 years to see up close!

Back to the workshop, our group of four was treated to great opportunities on each day; even the overcast days held surprises. Most unusual was a male Anna’s Hummingbird (in Canada in February!) defending territory. Other treats were feeding Black Oystercatchers, a preening Common Merganser, Glacous-winged Gulls diving for huge clams, a friendly raft of the exquisite Harlequin Duck, and a Common Goldeneye hauled out on rock at close range.

North of Victoria there is a splendid temperate rainforest called Goldstream Park, with a lovely whitewater stream framed by old growth trees covered with green moss and patches of ferns.  American Dippers love this place, and I was excited to have another chance to photograph these most uncharacteristic waterbirds, having gotten some okay shots a decade earlier near the Oregon Coast. Just as Glenn promised, there were a few little dark gray dippers working the rapids… plunging in, zipping here, zooming there, always on the move. And there was virtually no light to work with! Regardless, I had this inspiration to make a wispy river habitat shot at 1/10 a second exposure with a 600 mm lens on a monopod! This was a most ambitious shot for such a spastic subject as the dipper, but I could see the shot in my mind. I must have clicked off a hundred pictures when he entered the rapids, knowing that the bird would blur for most shots and my own movement would mess up other shots at a very slow shutter speed. By the Grace of God alone, a few shots were quite interesting. Viva Victoria! Long live the Queen!!

 
These birding guides feature more than 130 common and notable species in each of three regions.

Grace has an interesting way of working through time. I’ve been photographing Maryland and Chesapeake birds for over 20 years, with countless extraordinary encounters. While many of my best images have found their way into a book or calendar, there are still plenty of “orphans” needing a good home. Last summer, seemingly out of the blue, I received a phone call from a most exuberant Texan who had seen my website and wanted me to author a Maryland bird guide…now this is a nice way to start your day!

Susan Schaffel of Quick Reference Publishing marveled at my raptor photos in particular and declared that we should collaborate on a new set of bird guides showcasing the Chesapeake Bay region. The pocket-sized, waterproof guides would feature about 130 common and notable species per region, with silhouette-cropped photographs from my collection and basic descriptive information. Despite the daunting task of mining through my extensive library of color slides and digital images, I readily accepted the challenge and signed on for a busy winter of editing, researching and writing.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I actually had good images for all the species on my wish list, representing nearly half the statewide total. For some species like the Indigo Bunting, I had to think “now where did I get that shot… oh yeah, 15 years ago at Irvine Nature Center,” and off to digging through slides again. January was turning into a treasure hunt, and adding up all these wonderful encounters over two decades, I could see how God was laying out for me all the pieces to the puzzle. These beautiful orphans finally found a home!

The Chesapeake region hosts one of the greatest assortments of birds on the continent, especially the waterfowl. From woodpeckers and owls to egrets and sandpipers, your favorite bird groups are all included. For novice and intermediate birdwatchers, these guides are a great way to get started in a hobby that can easily last a lifetime. In all, the guides are divided into three regions: Chesapeake East, Chesapeake West, and Virginia.
Hot off the press, the guides are currently stocked by a variety of nature centers, bookstores, garden centers and birding specialty shops.

The guides may also be purchased online by clicking on the following links:

• Birds of the Eastern Chesapeake: Maryland & Delaware
• Birds of the Western Chesapeake: Washington DC & Maryland
• Birds of Virginia

Happy Birding!