Pelicans have made a remarkable comeback along the Gulf Coast in the past 30 years. Back when I was in high school, and spending as much time as we could at the beach, the pelican had all but disappeared from around here. Today all day long you will see flights of pelicans playing follow the leader, all in a straight line, along the waves.
I have never really harvested any apples from my apple trees. We live just too for south. It gets way too hot way too soon for the fruit to get any size. I usually eat a few each year, the birds eat even more. But, if for no other reason, I am glad I planted these two trees when we moved out here 15 years ago just to be able to take pictures of the flowers. I never tire of taking new photos of apple blossoms. You’ll have to forgive me…
There is something about this shot that makes me think of Japanese watercolors.
I took this shot just minutes before the fog completely covered this group of birds. What was really strange was, it was early afternoon. I took this shot at the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge between Angleton and Freeport south of my home. It’s a favorite place over the years to spend a morning or an afternoon watching the birds. On this particular day I left home after lunch to clear skies. By the time I made it to Chocolate Bayou, the fog was settling in from the coast. It got foggier and foggier as I got closer to my destination.
Once I arrived and found this flock of Rosette Spoonbills I only had time to set up the tripod and fire off a half dozen shots before I couldn’t even make out the birds in the distance.
A cousin of the Whooping Crane, these Sandhill Cranes visit the fields around here each winter. Sometimes you will see a dozen or so, sometimes they congregate in the hundreds. Whenever they gather in any numbers, they can be loud enough to cause you to shout to be heard.
I remember as a young man sitting in a deer stand in south Texas as the Sandhill Cranes would fly in and scare off all of the deer that would be feeding in the wheat field I was sitting on. Back in those days you could have a hundred or better deer eating as two or three hundred cranes settled down on the same field…Honking as they came in for a landing.
These three were eating in the open fields down at the Bar X Ranch west of Angleton. The Bar X is also a great place to catch almost tame white tailed deer.
Another trip to the wildlife refuge…There is nothing quite like trying to capture a bird in flight…