LLELA, October 2015

Had another opportunity to shoot this morning, so I headed back to LLELA. This time I decided to hike the Bittern Marsh Trail, hoping for some nice views just after sunrise and closeups of birds from the viewing blinds.

A bit of bad news right off the bat.  My camera had fallen on my my kitchen floor a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't realize that the circular polarizer had shattered.  So that was a bit of a surprise when I first removed the lens cap.  Without it, I lost some saturation in the morning sky.

The marsh has a unique beauty I'm not quite in tune with yet.  I did like how the sun reflected off the water here.

Spider webs in the early morning I always like. Moving around so I can compose the shot with a dark background far enough away to be out of focus so the web shows up clearly and crisply is a must.

My best wildlife sighting from the blind was the local osprey with breakfast.  The blind was too far away to get a decent shot.  I hustled for a better vantage point, but this was as good as it got.

Starting to see some fallen leaves on the trail put a smile on my face.  I'm still curious to see if there's a true "foliage" season in North Texas.

Algae, reeds, mucky water -- all elements I'm not accustomed to working with.  But all striking in their distinct way.

Here's a subject I'm more familiar with -- a female Northern Cardinal.  She stayed still enough and close enough for me to capture this nice shot.

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I stopped briefly at the Pollinator Pocket Prairie on my way out, hoping some late season wildflowers would be in bloom.  Some were. :)

I wasn't the only one who stopped.  A monarch butterfly was also flitting about and nectaring.  I would have liked a more distinct silhouette of its antennae in the petals, but I'm not  unhappy with what I got.

I followed the monarch from flower to flower, enjoying the variety of different compositions and lighting.

The background light was so bright for this last blossom that it reminded me of those Joel Sartore National Geographic images where they actually take animals out of their normal environments and photograph them in a stark white setting.  I've never been a huge fan of that look.  But I like it better when it's my shot. :)

A fine fall morning in North Texas!