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Other Noteworthy Dallas Nature Photographers include  Daniel S. Lim  and  Robert Bunch 

The LATEST Galveston PHOTOS
older Amateur Birder's Journal Stories and Pix are below.

Birds at White Rock Lake

May 24 2013

Fluffed-up Snow E in a Fall of Wawa

The way most "artists" who copy photographs find birds to copy is to Google some known bird name, then just pick and choose. I'd rather they didn't copy my photographs. It's illegal for them to copy a copyrighted image, but me finding out about it is massively difficult unless they ask permission. So sometimes I get on a streak of naming photographs I'm putting online without bird names, so The Goog doesn't find, list and link them.

Snow Eaze Fightin'

It seems to make sense that if I don't name birds accurately, those copiers can't find bird pix to rip off. But I have other issues to deal with, and while it's likely I — and every other decent or semi-decent birdographer online — will get ripped off regularly, there's really not much we can do about it, except post a legible and legal statement of our ownership. Hence the "Copyright 2013 by J R Compton. All Rights Reserved." notice shortened from "Photograph Copyright 2013 by J R Compton. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction in Any Medium Without Specific Written Permission."

Some people who ask permission are sincere and honest. Some are not. I don't charge everybody. I've asked for payment in the form of one letter sheet color image of what they make out of my photographs, but so far in six years, I've got four of those and once CD package — some quite good — hanging on my walls, so most of the time I just ask for money. I don't get much of that, either.

Recently someone who wanted to copy one of my photographs in her painting promised she'd put my name on the back of her framed painting when she finished it. Like anybody would ever see my name or association with my copyrighted image as used in her painting. I told her, "No, thank-you."

Then there's the honest people out there who need other people's images and are willing to pay a fair price. Hooray for those people. They help me buy new cameras (Which I'm soon to do again.) so I can get better at this. And that's a good thing. I've only been working on becoming a good photographer for 50 years now.

Compared with all that travail, getting images in real focus doesn't rate very high. If the focus of this shot were better with my slow, small Panasonic G5, I might not have had to florid-up these guys so much. If the exposure were better, I wouldn't have had to play with it in Photoshop (which wants to charge me $20 a month forever, plus another twenty to use the dreaded Dreamweaver software I'm writing and parking photos on this page with.

Still, I love the pose, the action of those birds mock-fighting to determine who wins, rather than drawing blood. As if — like in gymnastics — their form mattered more than hurting the other bird. Plus, I wanted too much to use it, so I didn't ask their permission, I just used it as if I'd invented them. As if me photographing them created the art of it, when we all know birds do all that. I was just there to record the event.

Yes, something is bad wrong with this image, yet I really like it. Coasting down now from this rant, we now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Snow E Fairly Normal

Crop up, so this big white bird with yellow lores and feet and black legs and beak looks especially tall and forbidding, when in fact, it's much smaller and no competition whatsoever for the much larger Great Egrets. But then Snowy Egrets usually fight with each other or some species the same size. Wouldn't want to get in a fight with that, you'd think and you'd be right. They're truly feisty. But I've never seen a drop of blood from any of their battles.

Grackle On A Post

One of the reasons I upgraded to the Panasonic G5 from my elderly G2 was that the G5 was supposed to be able to focus on vertical-shaped objects like this bird on a post. But today it just would not. So I had to aim focus at the post, then raise the lens to shoot the bird instead of the wood. Worked.

Red-bellied Wood Pecker

Like all today's pix, this was shot with the Panasonic G5, which is an inadequate camera for fast focusing on things that move fast. Like birds. I don't remember seeing another woodie bouncing around on the ground for years and years. Any one of my aging Nikons would have made short work of getting it sharp, but I wasn't packing a Nikon, because I'd got my little finger caught in something when I tripped in my messy office today, and it hurt, and carrying a big, heavy camera and big, heavy lens didn't sound like nearly as much fun as usual.

So I didn't get these as close to focus as I'd like to have,, although this ain't altogether awful. Maybe just part of that way.

Wrong Camera for a Wood Pecker

I was so excited when I found the hopping red, black and white bird on the ground along the Park-a-retum, then I was dismayed, because focusing was such a challenge, but still, these are not so bad. Beautiful birds. Just need to shoot them with a beautiful camera — and I have one in mind.

Mockingbird in a Tree

I shot this with the kit zoom that came utterly free with the G5. It was at the lake, but I don't remember where or the circumstance, but that's the lens I had on the cam then, and it worked out well. It's full frame, too. I just zoomed in as far as I could, and went click.

Dark Blue Crowned Nyght Hair on

Fierce little bird with a fierce-looking beak and fuzzy-looking feathers and an occipital plume we can't see here but will be prominent in the next shot of the other end of this particularly attractive and interesting bird.

Occipital Plume

Its crown and back look black here, and looking black got it its name, But with an occipital plume as jaunty as this one, you'd think they would have named it after that.

Pige N'fens

Call it a flying rat if you must. Rats have their dignity with all the rest of us. But this is a beautiful bird, and one that wasn't all that afraid of humans wielding dark cylinders at them.

Meanwhile, I'm still spending four to six hours a night working up still more Galveston Trip pix, but sometimes it's nice to keep a little newness in the Birder's Journal with a strange camera or place or setup or something. I've got some newish pix of the two sets of three white Easter ducks left unceremoniously in Sunset Bay, and they ain't doing half bad, either.
 

More, older Amateur Birder's Journal Stories and Pix are below.

Birding Galveston Island

Wednesday May 8

The Galveston Causeway

These two bridges, the high, very tall road and the low road with its drawbridge physically connect Galveston Island with Mainland Texas southeast of Houston. I have no idea where I was when I photographed this, but I arrived on Galveston via the high road, although the more I think about it, the more appealing the low road has become.

I couldn't stop along the high way, but there's the very real possibility of an enforced gawk stop along the drawbridge route, which appeals to the ocean-looking and bird-watching parts of me. And visually, I love the notion of having both possibilities.

The dominant species, almost always visible in the sky over this long, thin island in singles or great long lines or Vs or in flocks from a few to fifty or more birds sometimes in the near or far distance.

On land, and in its aerial proximity, Brown Pelicans will often be accompanied by the other, less large but possibly even more numerous, dominant island species, the Laughing Gull, more about whose collaboration with the pelicans we will explore later.

Unusually for this Amateur Birder's Journal, I am creating one, long story of my short, essentially three-day vacation to Galveston in a visually chronological order not unlike the popular Birding South Texas page (And yes, eventually this will be its own page also.)

I say visually chronological, because I shot this shot the second or so day of my vacation and had not the prior planning to execute it when I first got over that high bridge, off to the right from which is the cheap motel I stayed at, and just finding it from the road that passes right by it was a major geographical feat for this directionally impaired photographer.

Galveston Beach

The Motel 6, which I enjoyed for the privacy and spacious room, if not for the bed comfort nor slow hot water, difficult-to-adjust AC or swimming pool and intra-room noise, offered refuge and a view of Galveston Bay in both directions along the narrow spit of land it occupies along I-45 at the north end of the island. I loved seeing all that water so close and beautiful in the changing weather, although the neighborhood was anything but luxurious.

More about my stay in Galveston this time — not my first — as this story unfolds. Unlike most stories on these Bird Journal pages, it will continue chronologically, because I think it needs some kind of order, and that's about all I can muster. 

I shot 1,814 photos in during Wednesday afternoon, all days Thursday and Friday and a while on Saturday morning, and I've slowly winnowed them down to 1,522, and I fully expect to edit down to about twelve hundred or a thousand shots, because I still see lots of out-of-focus pix (always a problem with a new camera or this old photographer).

Amusement Park on a Pier

Wet Birds at the Dry Beds

May 19 2013

Great Blue Heron and Big Green Turtles

Not a lot of water in the Fort Worth Drying Beds these days, which always causes us to worry when we get there, but we generally find some bodies of water there, and almost always lots of birds and other fauna and flora.

Flycatcher on a Stick

I was sure it was a flycatcher. The giveaway is all the hair and fur around its beak — for catching flies.

Juvenile Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

With its best feature behind it.

One of Those Shorebirds Identifying Which Always Makes Us Cringe

Willets been following me around lately. Is this another one of those?

Anna says it's a Male Dickcissel

I'll have to page slowly through my library of bird i.D books to figure out who this is, but I'm so glad I caught it proclaiming from the up end of the stick. Birds proclaiming from a stick seem to be a sub-species of today's Dry Beds shoot.

Three Blue-winged Teal (ducks) and one Adult Breeding Wilson's Phalarope

The Phalarope's breeding status is told by its dark black and reddish neck.

Same Ducks, but now the Adult Breeding Wilson's Phalarope is Flying

Adult Breeding Wilson's Phalarope (fall a rope) with three Blue-winged Teal

The Chase - I

We can tell what it's about to do in this shot.

The Chase - II

And sure enough, seconds later, that's exactly what it does do. Who these birds are is much more a challenge to figure out.

Nine of Ten Mallard Babies with Mom

Mallard mom and nine of ten babies. Maybe only one or two of which will survive.

Shorebird & Blue-winged Teal

I'm certain about the duck being a Blue-winged Teal. The shorebird is much more mysterious.

First-summer Variety Red-winged Blackbird on a Stick

The red and yellow coverlet (epaulet) is the dead giveaway, but I really wasn't at all sure.

Large & Small Shorebirds

Greater Yellowlegs and a smaller Sanderling? I never really know.

Great Egret Almost Too Close

One of the more common birds in large bodies and small bodies of water around Texas, but it's always nice to catch one in focus. I love Great Egrets.

Wilson's Phalarope Momentarily Stopped from Spinning

Unless they've been eating so much they're nearly slowed to stop, Phalaropes run or swim in tight circles like crazed speed freaks.

Hawk Flying Away

Never saw any of the rest of it.

Thistle with Butterfly

The biggest trick with this series of photographs (This is the best of that bunch.) was waiting for the thistles and their passengers to stop bobbing in the wind.

Tall Trees in Somebody near the lake's Yard

May 17 2013

Adult Barred Owl Looking Down

Looking down at the three of us looking up. Me with 600mm worth of lens. Amazing focus through all the branches of the several trees we must have annoyed the owl family following them and their still fluffy kits around in and through. Soon as I'd get a good bead on one, they'd get nervous and their neighbor birds — especially the noisy blue-jays — would get anxious and loud, and the neighbor birds would run them out or they'd escape to another tree, where it would take us a minute or so to locate, then get a fix on.

The Owl's Eyebrows (actually eyelids) — Adult Barred Owl

Kathy emailed me about them, and Chet helped us find them among the trees overhead, thick with leaves and branches and some other birds who figured this was their territory, not somewhere that belonged to some newbie bunch of owls. This owl has its protective nictitating lids down, but what I perceive to be its feathered eyelids at half mast. At the bottom of today's entry is a link to a link page full of owl faces, and none of them have anything like this going on.

I know I need to take a class on birds. I heard Jim Peterson talk at Trinity River Audubon Center about a recent class for Master Birders that's not altogether unlike a similar class for Master Naturalists. I thought I might be ripe to take the MB class, but its purpose is to develop volunteers, and I think I've got enough tasks working already, but I need to learn a lot more about birds, although maybe I need more bird people in my life, and I'm probably about ready to serve more.

I want to. There's a class in ornithology at my alma mater, the University of Dallas, and that may be the right match for me. But I don't really know. I've got a shelf full of books I haven't yet absorbed enough of the knowledge of to know this simple fact about owl eyelids. And there are so many others …

Fledgling Barred Owl  …

Whose eyes are red from a flash I was attempting to fill in some of the darkest shadows with. Like our eyes sometimes do, this very young Barred Owl's eyes reflect red. But at least we can see its eyes. Looking up, we might have seen some reflections in there, but it was mostly dark black in those deep, protected sockets that help owls see in the dark.

Adult Barred Owl

Looking down at me.

All today's shots were made with a doubled (2X telextender on a) 300mm lens on my very elderly (2005) Nikon D200 camera, hand-held, usually almost straight up into those trees around my dear friends' house and yard.

If you have or see an unusual bird, email me and if you're close to Elderly East Dallas, I'll come running.

Owl parts
Owl eyes and vision
Owl Eyesight
Owl Facts
Owl Faces

Five avocets visit sunset Bay

May 14 2013

Five Somethings Different Coming into Sunset Bay

I have that borrowed camera one more day, and I was determined to photo birds on it till I had to give it back, so off to White Rock Lake I went this early afternoon, supposedly the worst time of the day for birds, but that advice is for the birds, because I got to see a bonanza of visiting birds.

All Five Visiting Avocets — One Just Took a Bath and is Twist Drying

The bather of the group is second beak from the left. It's twisting its body to flip off the water so fast its beak is twisting and separating. I was standing on the pier and Sunset Bay when I saw them come in. I thought I'd had the luck I was getting this day, and was about to go on home and catch more up on sleep. Instead, I bee-lined it back to the Beach at Sunset Bay, and began photographing the five new visitors. After a while, when I thought they'd stay long enough, I went up the hill and fetched a tripod to hold my cam and lens even stiller.

One Avocet Standing

It wasn't the first time I'd photographed Avocets at White Rock. That was back awhile — September 2008. These might have been some of those, or somebody they told what a lovely place Sunset Bay was.

Another Avocet Standing in the Shallows of Sunset Bay

Glad to have them arrive in the middle of the day when I needed something interesting to photograph. Hooray!

Flap-hopping Avocet

They just stood out there past the peninsula and preened and preened and preened for the longest time. Resting, I assumed. Then one or the other or another would do what I'm calling flap hopping. 

Maybe They Were Taking Turns

When I first noticed the behavior, I assumed that one was about to fly, but they flapped furiously and rose a little on those long legs but did not let go of the firmament, just seemed to get a little taller, then they settled back to their natural height.

Another Flap-Hopper, Earlier in the Process

I've seen a lot of birds stretched their wings by flapping them furiously. This was the avocets doing just that.

That Same Avocet Flapping More and Growing Taller

Great opportunity to photo a little wing action.

Five Avocets Resting

Mostly, during the forty minutes or so I was able to photograph them, they didn't do much, just rested, preened, and occasionally flapped.

Then Suddenly All Five Avocets Fled

Another Great Photo Opportunity. By this time I had the cam and honker of a lens on a tripod, so these came out pretty well.

Three Out of Five Avocets Fleeing

I was sorry to see them go, but I'd got lots of pictures, so have at it, Avocets.

All Five Fleeing

Bye, bye, nice birds. Thanks for the opportunity.

UT Medical Center Rookery

May 6

Cedar Waxwings in the Trees at the Rookery

My bad eyesight, I thought they were Blue Jays. So I was careful to photograph them numerous times. Out of a bunch — er flock — of birds I enlarged this part, because these were the only ones in focus in this shot.

Three Cedar Waxwings from Various Angles

These are some stylin' birds. I need to get up extra close with one or two some day. They might have to be drunk first, which is something I've seen them do, and apparently they do often. As my Lone Pined edition of Birds of Texas — always a good source for particular bird information none of the other books seem to offer, "As flocks gorge on fermented berries in late winter and spring, birds will show definite signs of tipsiness." I found that several years ago, when I photographed some in Sunset Forest [link fixed], hanging upside-down and carrying on on like there's no tomorrow.

Adult Female Anhinga Ready to Jump into Flight

I recognized the pounce mode, so shot quickly. Not bad exposure, but I really like the sun filtering through her wings. Juveniles have dark, brown it looks like in Sibley's Guide to Birds.

Adult Male Breeding Anhinga

Different bird species occupy different portions of the forest that is the UT Southwestern Medical Center Rookery, so we can't depend upon them being in the same places year to year, but now that I know some of the trees where the Anhinga hang out, and where those can be viewed from the asphalt sidewalk around parts of the area, I can keep going back hoping to get closer and more detail.

I had my tripod in the car, but I didn't lug it in. That's almost a sure-fire way to get more detail. But it's such a hassle.

First-year Juvenile Anhinga

I like this shot because even though it's not actually flying, it's got one wing and its tail both fully extended, and it's holding comparatively still, so we get to see some of the details therein. I thanked it for us.

Adult Breeding Male Anhinga

I was a little thrown off by the interceding gray-frown branches that make this bird's long S-curved neck look gray instead of the black it actually is, but I've come to understand it is just who I say it is in the caption directly above. Appearances can be deceiving. Another bird showing us its wings, without jumping into the air and flying., but not much detail visible this time.

Adult Breeding Great Egret

Red eyes, green lores, bright yellow beak and all that fine plumage. Not sure what else it could do to advertise its breeding condition. Maybe fly around with a branch in its beak…

Black-crowned Night-Heron with a Nest Stick in its Beak

Speaking of a nest stick, here's a relatively small one of those. This Black-crown spent quite some time trying to pull a much larger, fresh still with leaves on it, branch from this tree, but the tree wouldn't budge the branch, so the heron settled for a much smaller twig.

Adult Breeding Black-crowned Night Heron Looking Fierce

I especially like it's trailing occipital plume. Those things always remind me of swashbucklers and swordplay. Very dashing, and with those big red eyes, this bird looks fierce.

White Ibis Sitting Nest

The previously cited Lone Pine Edition of Birds of Texas says they nest "from ground level up to 15 ft; nest is a platform of sticks, cordgrass or reeds; pair incubates 2-4 brown-splotched, buff or bluish eggs for 21-22 days; pair cares for the young." So there you have it.

Adult Breeding Cattle Egret

I guess I need to scope out the Cattle Egret at the rookery and concentrate on them some future time. They are amazing when they poof out to show off their poof size and finery. Normally, such meek and mild little egrets that hang around cattle, but at breeding time, they can look like monsters at a moment's notice.

There's an image on my Courship Behaviors page that gets pretty close to how really fierce Cattle Egrets can get.

Adult Western Kingbird

To round out today's collection of little and big birds at the rookery.

White Rock Lake

May 5

Robin with Juicy Insect

Driving past that place that used to have a lot of trees and was named after them, but now has mostly big steel structures and parking lots, I was photographing birds by the side of the road with my longest telephoto out of the driver's side window of The Slider.

I Was Going for Three Birds on the Tops of Tall Weeds in Winfrey Meadow When I Got Four

The one on the far right is probably a Barn Swallow. Two of the others have yellow breasts, so might be one flycatcher or another, and I don't know who's out there behind all these others. Just I love that meadow now, even if the Scissor-tails seem to be gone from it. Maybe some years spring happens slow, but this year spring was really fast.

Red-winged Blackbird Getting Ready to Proclaim

Looks like it's standing on something that might be delicious in a salad. It was taller than I am and along the line of tall weeds between the pier at Sunset Bay and the rest of the grassy area there. I'd attempted to photograph it at least a dozen times before this. Each time, he'd land, then when I acquired focus, he'd fly off. This time, I finally got him.

Cootses and Gooses

The barnyard was active today. It usually is, even when there's not mobs of birds there.

I Was Talking About Brown-headed Cowbirds The Other Day

This is the male.

Female Cowbird Being Shy

And this is the female. Like everybody else along today's roads, they were finding and eating things.
 

May 4

Mom Mallard, Seven Ducklings and One Beer Can

The cycle of life. I read somewhere recently that only one of ten ducklings born this season will last till the next season.

Male Great-tailed Grackle Proclaiming

I've captioned many photographs of male Red-winged Blackbirds proclaiming — giving their all in a scream-like call meant to gather females to mate with him. I think that's likely what's going on here. But I'm an amateur. I have seen many pairs of males grappling in the air with each other. It's spring. It's hardly surprising that they'd be fighting over females or the possibilities of females.

Great-tailed Grackle on a Post

Which is what this one is doing, too. I was interested in each individual's specific form for proclaiming. Real birders probably call proclaiming by some other term.

Complaining Mallard Hybrid

Of, I believe the male sex — and gender, too, probably.

European Starling Showing Tongue

I don't remember whether it was complaining or shouting for joy.

Backlighted Tricolored Heron in Sunset Bay near Sunset

The Bay Tri I last saw this day I called White-faced Ibis Day.

Tricolored Heron Rouse

Essentially a rouse is when a bird shakes evertything up — all the feathers, at least — all over its body. I have a whole page of them to give you a more thorough understanding of that term. That page includes many species, so we fully realize all birds in all bird sizes rouse.

I know this is a mid-preen rouse, and I think I know where The Bay Tri's head is in this picture, but I'm really not sure about that.

Lake Ray Hubbard

May 3

Whooping Crane Pair Over There

We read in Bird Chat that a pair of Whooping Cranes have been being seen on Lake Ray Hubbard in Garland, so we drove out there in the cold cold winter spring and struggled to see or photograph them, they were so far away. But I kept the ISO as low as it would go in the gray dark light. This shot isn't even full frame, but most of today's shots of activity on the far shore are significantly enlarged.

The Fort Worth Audubon Society's counterpart for Dallas' Bird Chat is here. Audubon Fort Worth birders say there are more sightins listed on this forum.

As Close to Close As I Got

Not terribly small like most of my shots of this pair today, but blown up more than I'd usually want to. Much larger than this, and the image would fall apart. I know I manually set the ISO to 200, but the camera set it back up to 800, which was probably just as well. No way even my chunky sturdy tripod would keep my exposures long enough to avoid camera shake in that wind…

Three Quarters of a Frame

I keep switching cameras, because I don't have one decent one right now, and neither does Nikon, unless I wanted to pay more than six thousand dollars for one that'd be outdated in a few short years. All the Nikons I might desire are snafu somehow. The full-frame D800 often does not focus on the left side — a major drawback to someone who actually composes images. The D600, which is a thousand dollars cheaper but still full frame, splatters oil all over the sensor from the mirror reflexing up and down with east shot. And the mighty D4, which I've read has clairvoyant fast focus, is only $6,000.

But as dark as it was today — deep charcoal gray with not a patch of blue or bright in sight, and the wind, it's probably just as well the camera was in control. A newer cam would have been fine at iso 800, my my five-year-old D300 was barely keeping its head above water. But it's not really going to get much better than this with sunshine's high contrast between bright white and shadows.

Visiting Great Egret Leaves the Building

The egret flying away had been high in that tree in the foreground, then it swooped down to visit up close and birdenal (It can't be person-al.) with the Whooper Pair. They're reported to be stand-offish, but the egret got right in there with them, everybody hunting for their ongoing meal. Word is the cranes graze, hunt, preen and sleep their days on that far shore. They were very active during our hour-or-so visit.

Lots of Other Birds Closer

When I could tear myself away from the impossibility of capturing quality images from the other side of the lake, I photographed just inside this side of it, and got fairly decent results. Not every time, but plenty often enough. The women we talked with there had a high-powered scope that clearly showed the color and shape of the bands on the Crane's legs.

I know the big duck second from the left is a male Northern Shoveler. There's another M N S fifth from the left, and a Mallard at top right. The others on the right side are Wilson's Phalaropes, but I haven't tracked down yet the I.D of the sylph of a bird on the far left.

A Flight of Wildon's Phalaropes Pass Two unidentified Birds

I figured when I read about the Whoopers showing up last weekend, there wouldn't be a chance they'd still be hanging around by the time we got out there, but there was, and they did. This shot looks like at least three varieties of shorebirds, maybe more.

Adult Breeding Female Wilson's Phalarope

I'm beat as I write this. Sleepless too long and running around rural Garland well after that... I'll look up these guys in all those bird books tomorrow or the next day. I even have a The Shorebird Guide that might help me figure out which birds these are. I'm pretty sure this one is the same as all the flying birds in the next image up, but there's a little more detail here.

Unusually, it is the female of this species who colors up for breeding, not the males, who are drab and comparatively pale.

Adult Breeding Greater Yellowlegs

I want it to be a Yellow Legs, but those are definitely orange. And I'm fuzzy-eyed tonight. Hoping just to finish this page off, get some sleep and start thinking again tomorrow. Great pic for this side of the lake — still a significant distance. ISO 800 hurts much less in low contrast lighting.

Same Bird As Above and a Wilson's Phalarope

The one on the left is the one in the shot just above. Same bright legs. No idea yet which the other one is.

Another Shot of a Wilson's Phalarope and a Greater Yellowlegs

If I can ID this one in front, I'll have several other pix mostly identified, too. One has little with black legs, and one's bigger with orange legs, but not the same as the orange-legs a couple shots above.

Nest in the Swamp

One of the women who'd already stopped on the edge of the lake that may have been the closest place with visual access to the Whooping Cranes wanted me to photograph this nest. I think she believed it was a Red-winged Blackbird's. She told of watching a Brown-headed Cowbird attempt to get into it — perhaps to lay eggs into it. Cowbirds play that trick, then have the other species bird mom raise her kits, but a male Red-winged Blackbird was going all out to keep her from it.

If that is what this is, it's the first one I've ever noticed. Quite an elaborate structure in an area we assumed would be too swampy muddy to cross to get closer to this side's shore, although they told us of a place further down that road that dirt-roaded to a parking lot and easy walk much closer to this side's shore, though it didn't make the cranes much bigger in our viewfinders.

Something else we discussed out on the marsh overlooking the lake and the far-away cranes, was the difference between sex and gender. The women who were so helpful in finding and photographing the big white birds on the other side of the world from us kept referring to various birds' gender, which may well be the preferred term in birding. I don't know. I'm still, as this page's banner proclaims in the biggest word on this page, an amateur.

So I looked it up, and found "Although the words gender and sex both have the sense 'the state of being male or female,' they are typically used in slightly different ways: sex tends to refer to biological differences, and gender to cultural or social ones." Thus a biological male of any species may perceive himself as or act as female, thus bending our understandings of gender, despite his male parts. I've often read about that in reference to bird and animal behaviors.

That One Other Other Bird Shot

More selections from the menagerie. The bigger ones are ducks. Shovelers flying and Mallards on the water. No idea who the others are.

More Shovelers

And a couple somethings else. I think those on the right bottom are just what's left of a tree. And two as yet unidentified species that I'm pretty sure I've seen before. Somewhere. I never got around to it, but I kept being amazed at the huge number of birds out on that faraway lake — and they were not all the same shapes or colors. Intriguing.

White Rock Lake

May 1

Male Wood Duck with American Coots

Today's shots are collected from the last week or so of frenzied bird photographing in gloroius spring, spring, spring. I had hoped for a bevy of Wood Ducks, and the Universe provided me with a bevy of Wood Ducks, so what else could I do?

Female Wood Duck

All these shots utilized what they used to call "Synchro Sunlight Flash," which simply means I lifted my flash so it fired each time I clicked the shutter. It's magic. Looks almost like I didn't use flash, although there's certainly something strange about some of these shots.

Male Wood Duck from the Front

For one thing, all of these images are in sharp focus...

Female Wood Duck Still Dripping

It was at dinner time in Sunset Bay, when Charles arrives, usually with a big, friendly, mostly white dog in the front seat barking. Then he unloads big bags of corn grain and pours out long lines of the stuff, so all the ducks who've flown in to get what may be their most nutritious meal of the day. Especially if they've been around humans throwing white bread at them.

Male Wood Duck - Front Quarter View

I haven't been back at dinner time, but I haven't seen this many Wood Ducks.

Female Wood Duck, Male Wood Duck and an American Coot

I don't think I've ever photographed a male Wood from this angle before. But isn't she beautiful? None of all that gaudy color.

Male and Female Wood Duck

See, they're not all the same. Sometimes Nature uses different colors or tones.

Vivid Male Wood Duck Facing Right

But still …

Back Quarter - Female Wood Duck Dripping

Sometimes it's difficult to believe they're of the same species.

Male Wood Duck Walking

I should probably mention that not all cameras and/or not all shutter speeds will allow this sort of synchronization. And that I set the camera to slightly underexpose the flash portion of our lighting, so it almost looks like there's no flash.  At least there's no unsightly shadows under everybody's creases and chins and/or beaks.

Female and Male Wood Ducks Eating Corn

Mallards, Coots and Wood Ducks

This shot is down here more because I like it, than because it shows relative sizes. And because no flash was used in preparation of this image.

The Day Before That

Downy Mallard Duckling

One of the issues with Synchro-Sunlight exposures is that if the subject is too close to a wall-like structure like this tree stump, you get the dreaded chin, beak, chest or leg shadows.

Mom Mallard and 12

This shot could have benefited from being closer to the camera with the flash if there's any flash involved.

Seven Mallard Ducklings

They sometimes start with more than a dozen ducklings, but some father ducks eat their young. As do some other birds, and there's lots of things out there that will kill a duckling, including wolves, coyotes, bob- and feral domestic cats, dogs, hawks, owls, pelicans (ours have gone back north , etc. It's difficult to track an individual duck mom, and you'd have to be wherever they are all the time. And other things.

Brown Mutant Mallard

Or somebody like that. At first I thought it might be a summer eclipse molt, but now I'm pretty sure it's just weird, since there was no other duck like it in Sunset Bay, where all the mutants hang out. Only the mutants survive!

Mom & Six Mallard Babies

Cute, huh?

Brown Male Mallard Hybrid with the Beginnings of a Poof on Top

Crown? Crest? Poof? I know there's a proper term for those things, even when they're still incipient. Since Mallards will have sex with almost any duck, there are more Mallard hybrids than any other breed's. We know it's a male duck by its curly tail feathers, even if its color is subdued like most duck females.

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