UT Southwestern Medical Center Rookery: June 2022

I saw a Facebook post last month with some great photos from the UTSWMC Rookery, and knew it was time for another visit of my own.  I always build it up in my head as this long excursion for which I need to plan diligently.  This morning around 11:00 I decided today was the day, and I was there before noon.  So, not much planning required -- diligent or otherwise.

Great Egrets are a given whenever I've gone to the rookery.  There were fewer of them than I've seen in the past, and not many babies.  But there were a number of fledglings like this older one ...

... and this younger one.

Black-crowned Night-Herons were in their typical spot.  This one was perfectly content to pose for me.

When you watch a single animal for a while, you have an opportunity to catch behavior.  In this case, it was a scratch that looks like a friendly wave.

A yawn -- at least, it looked like a yawn to me -- and my friend finally flew off.

I was really into trying to get pictures of the birds in context today.  Not having my subject fill the frame so much, but still be the obvious focal point.  I like this effort with the young fledging egret.

There were more Anhinga than I had ever seen before.  And most of them kept to the tops of the trees and were difficult to get a clear view of.  Then I caught a glimpse of these babies, and after watching them for a while Mom showed up.  And I got a better shot for it. :)

I don't know how young animals put up with extreme heat.  Or any animals, really.  But the young ones with nests in full sun really confound and concern me.  Much gular fluttering.

These two were among the youngest specimens I saw.  So if you want to see baby birds, clearly you should get to the rookery before late June.

The high sun made the lighting trickier than I'd expected.  I did get a nice silhouette of sorts on this youngster as a result.

I like to imagine that these two are the same birds I saw last year.  But it does make me a little sad that their relationship seems to be in a worse place.

A good visit, with a tolerable stench given the heat.  And I got my bird photographing fix in for the time being!

Related Links:

• UTSWMC Rookery: June 2021
• UTSWMC Rookery: June 2018
• UTSWMC Rookery: July 2017
• UTSWMC Rookery: April 2017
• UTSWMC Rookery: May 2016

UT Southwestern Medical Center Rookery: June 2021

My mom was in town visiting this past week, and she suggested making a visit to the UT Southwestern Medical Center Rookery.  I'd taken her years earlier, and was always happy to photograph the birds.  So despite overcast conditions that weren't ideal for photos, off we went!

I was surprised to find that it had been three years since my last visit.  Once I had gone three times in just two months!  One thing that hadn't changed in those three years -- plenty of Great Egrets, including many fledglings.

Not everyone already had young to care for, since this fellow appeared to still be in breeding plumage.

Seeing fledglings this old still begging for food reminds of me a story I read once of how former Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez had breast fed until he was four.

I mean, these three look like they're trying to actually eat their poor mother instead of whatever she's trying to regurgitate.  Possibly time to let them fend for themselves. 

I do love the fuzzy heads of the young ones.

Not all twins are creepy.  But these two kinda are.

I'd never seen more than one White Ibis at the rookery.  This time there must have been at least 50, most of them nesting in the interior.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see half a dozen Little Blue Herons, all  in the same general area.  And all also mainly obscured by foliage.

This shot frustrates me because this heron was in a fairly open spot, and I failed to account for the leaves in the foreground that add a distracting out-of-focus element to the shot.

I may need to make a return trip soon (and in better light) to capitalize on the unprecedented (to me) ibis and heron population this year! 

Dallas Skyline

I tried something a little different for me last night -- shooting the Dallas skyline at sunset. It was supposed to be a group event, organized by Adventures In Photography of North Texas. But the threat of severe thunderstorms in the forecast convinced the organizer to postpone. Because I'm apparently an idiot with no regard for my own well-being, I went anyway.

Good news -- the forecast storms never materialized.  I found the spot where we hard agreed to meet fairly easily, but also found the Trinity River to be much lower than expected.  Since I wanted a reflection in my foreground, I had to move to where the water was and compose accordingly.  This was actually the clearest reflection of my entire shoot, as a persistent breeze picked up shortly after I arrived.

I arrived well before sunset to have ample time to experiment with position and composition.  A Great Egret thought this scene needed a foreground element.

As the egret moved on, I decided to try the same scene without my polarizer.  I don't like it nearly as much without the reflection of the buildings and with so much of the blue from the sky gone.

It wasn't an especially colorful sunset, but there was a brief window when the clouds picked up some pink.  The lights on the buildings were starting to come on and be more noticeable, too.

I wanted to get a good amount of both the clouds and the reflection in this shot, but the building to the left of Reunion Tower wasn't adding anything.  So I cropped this one as a 4x5 instead of a 4x6.

I shot everything with a two-stop bracket in each direction, but ended up not caring for most of the HDR blends.  Most of them sacrificed too much sharpness without adding enough additional detail.  This is the bracketed version of the previous shot, and actually seems to have less detail in the shadows.  Go figure.

The sky in the background kept getting darker (not surprisingly), but for a while I continued to pick up some nice reflection of the lighter sky to the west in some of the buildings.

I switched to a portrait orientation to get more of the clouds and longer reflections in the water for just one shot.

About an hour after I started I decided the sky was probably about as dark as it was going to get, took one last shot, and packed up for the night.

It felt great to get back out shooting for the first time since April in Ennis, and to try a different sort of landscape photography!

UT Southwestern Medical Center Rookery, June 2018

I'm headed down to the Gulf Coast in a couple of weeks to shoot shorebirds.  This will be my third time making the trip, and I've always come back with shots I've really liked.  To help me make the most of my time there, I decided to head down to the UTSW Rookery today to get a little practice with their resident birds.

I actually saw seven different species there -- probably the most ever for me in one visit.  Most of them, because they're not stupid, stuck to the shade.  But the Great Egrets helped me out.

I'm never sure exactly what stage any of the young birds are going to be in.  I've been there too early in the season, and I've been there too late.  June seems like it's a smidge late, since I saw relatively few babies.

When I left, I wasn't sure if I had anything really good.  Even after I went through all the shots and chose my selects I wasn't especially pleased.  But once I got into the processing, I was pleasantly surprised.

After I got a few portrait pics, I started to look more for behavior and interactions between pairs of birds.

This particular pair of juveniles was pretty active.  I wonder if they're nearly independent already, given their size.

These two adults looked like they were behind the curve and just getting started on building nests.  I wonder how viable eggs would even be now that it's so hot out.

I wish I'd focused a little more on trying to get some flight shots, but I'm still glad I got what I did.  I feel a little better prepared now for what I'll hopefully see in a couple of weeks!

Centennial Park, March 2018

Another warm, sunny weekend day meant another trip out with my camera. I decided to return to Centennial Park in Irving where I'd had the good fortune of shooting Manny the Mandarin Duck a couple of years earlier. I didn't expect to see something that unique this time. I was mainly hoping for close proximity to a variety of birds in good light. The basics. :)

Not a bird, obviously.  I didn't realize fox squirrels ate leaf blossoms.  Gotta be easier on the choppers than acorns.

I stalked this Snowy Egret for a while hoping it would do something interesting.  This stretch qualifies.

A flotilla of red-eared sliders seemed to be enjoying the day.

Domestic geese tend to come closer than other "wilder" species.  I like the detail I was able to capture in the feathers, water droplets, and serrations in the beak here.

Muscovy ducks ain't pretty in the classic sense.  But I do like the view straight through the nare on this gal's beak.  Admittedly, I had to look up what that hole is called.

When families toss bread into the water, the Lesser Scaups get whipped into a bit of a feeding frenzy.

Then the families run of bread, and they leave, and serenity returns.

I'm gaining a greater appreciation of the impact that patterns on the water have on images of waterfowl.  The ripples are like clouds -- you've got to have some to boost the overall visual interest level.

I eventually picked up on watching for when the birds dove underwater and tried to catch them when they came back up.  Often they'd rear back and flap their wings to dry off a bit, like this lady.

I was at a great angle to get great detail on this female Wigeon...

... and this male Mallard.  The iridescent heads of Mallard drakes often give me trouble, but this one went well.

No Mandarin this year, but I think I actually got better shots this time around of the "common folk"!

Spring Creek Forest Preserve

The local NANPA group sent out a Meetup invitation a while ago to shoot fall foliage at the Spring Creek Forest Preserve yesterday. I accepted the invitation, then promptly forgot all about it until receiving an email reminder on Friday. Which is pretty much why I accepted the invitation in the first place.  Left to my own devices, I've been terrible about making time to get out and shoot lately. Here was a time and place already locked down. All I had to do was show up!

So I did. :)

It was my first visit to the preserve, so I had no real idea what to expect.  The foliage was spotty, which was pretty predictable.  But I was struck right away by the limestone cliffs. 

My circular polarizer may be my favorite tool.  I love that I was able to get some transparency in the water closest to me to reveal the leaves on the bottom, then also pick up the reflection from the bright blue sky and the trees on the opposite shore.

Something else that struck me was the amount of trash littering the area.  On the one hand, I found it pretty disappointing and upsetting.  On the other hand, I've never volunteered to come out to a clean-up day to do anything about it.  So I can't complain too much.

A red-shouldered hawk perched in a barren tree let me approach closer than I expected, then was kind enough to also turn its head so I could capture some catchlight on the eye.

I'm still a sucker for backlit leaves, especially when they're isolated from their background.

I estimate we had about 15 photographers crawling around the preserve.  Another visitor asked me whether there was some special reason we were all there, like a rare bird sighting.  I just smiled and replied that we were mainly there because someone had taken the trouble to organize it!

The obligatory shot looking straight up into a tree full of turning leaves.

The slow-moving creek did provide many opportunities for crisp reflections.

A merge of three bracketed shots provided my favorite image from the trip.  The creek provides a nice leading line, and the even contrast from the blend provides a painterly feel.

I took some long exposure shots of leaves and bubbles being carried along by the current.  Interesting combination of motion on the surface and stillness on the bottom.

I'd like this shot a little more if there was more blue in the sky (and therefore, the reflection).  But I'm still happy with the foreground, midground, and background elements.

Spent about two hours meandering, shooting, and chatting with other photographers in great conditions.  Very glad I went!