Despite all the whining last post, I had a delightful time at Lafitte’s Cove, Galveston Island last weekend. Present were Short-billed Dowitchers (in summer colors), Mottled Ducks, Fulvous Whistling-Ducks, a Worm-eating Warbler, Black-throated Green Warblers, Black and White Warblers, Tennessee Warblers, Northern Parulas, Northern Waterthrushes, a Scarlet Tanager, Prothonotary Warblers, Palm Warblers, a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and a Cooper’s Hawk.
I used to think that Sabine Woods was the best place for springtime Neotropical migrants along the Texas Gulf Coast, but I was wrong. Lafitte’s Cove is better . . . at least this spring . . . on the days I visited . . . . Although both places are exceptional birding locales and well worth a visit, they are not without their challenges. Sabine Woods, for example, has the nastiest biting insects I’ve ever experienced (possible exceptions include Mexico and northern Minnesota). Lafitte’s Cove, because it is essentially located within a subdivision, has lots of people (some noisy). Luckily most of them are nice.
Additional images from this session will be included within the Galveston Island Birds Collection some day (when I have time).
Bathing Tennessee Warbler at Lafitte’s Cove, Galveston Island, Texas. High-speed synchronized flash.Northern Waterthrush at Lafitte’s Cove. Northern Waterthrushes are difficult to tell from Louisiana Waterthrushes. This bird is a Northern Waterthrush because the superciliary stripe thins behind the eye, and the throat is streaked, rather than white. High-speed synchronized flash.Prothonotary Warbler (aka Golden Swamp Warbler) at Lafitte’s Cove, Galveston Island. “Prothonotary Warbler” is a silly name of obscure origin that should be abandoned. The original name, Golden Swamp Warbler, says it all. High-speed synchronized flash.
“This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”–Chief Seattle
Given the fantastic spring we had last year, I had very high songbird hopes for this spring. Many I have spoken to in the field, however, have had, like me, a disappointing spring thus far. Some serious birders I have spoken to have described this spring as “strange” or “weird” and attempted to spin personal theories about wind and weather misdirecting birds away from their normal trajectories. There were times last year at this time when Edith L. Moore, for example, was hopping with warblers. Of course, most of the spring still remains, and hope springs eternal.
This past weekend we visited Pelican Island, the Corps Woods, and Edith L. Moore. I saw a Blue-headed Vireo at the latter, and that was about it, other than extremely common Gulf Coast resident birds. Botanically, Pelican Island was the Garden of Eden, and I did enjoy some floral macrophotography. We have apparently had a bumper crop of herps this year, however. Lizards and other reptiles are common sights and sounds as they rummage around in the leaf litter. Now as fond as I am of herps (having spent most of my childhood stalking them through swamps and forests and having taken several herpetology courses in college and graduate school), let’s face it: they are no substitute for birds. At this point, the only herp I would be excited to see would be the one thrashing around in the beak of a wader, shrike, or raptor!
Great Egret with Juvenile Five-lined Skink at Lafitte’s Cove, Galveston Island, Texas. This bird was hunting lizards in a dry, fully terrestrial, grassy area–not the water’s edge, where one typically sees waders taking prey.
As I write this the weather forecast looks fantastic for the weekend. A massive cold front has just pushed all the dreary, humid slop out to sea, leaving behind blazing cobalt skies–perfect for illuminating the glowing hues of warblers, vireos, and orioles among the flowers. But not herps. Hear me Fates . . . please not herps!
Acacia constricta (whitethorn) at Pelican Island, Texas. Pelican Island was dotted with flowering honeysuckle, evening primrose, and mulberry trees in fruit last weekend. Birds were in short supply, however. Hand-held with 100mm f/2.8L IS macro/high-speed synchronized ring flash.
Thus far I have avoided discussing the technical aspects of maintaining a bird photography blog site for a number of reasons. I am definitely interested in neither computers nor the Internet per se, being far more excited about ornithology and photography, and only working my way through the technical computer aspects as needed. Teaching myself to use IBM PC’s in the early 1980’s with their ghastly manuals, monochromatic green screens, and volatile storage media (“floppy diskettes”) left an indelible dislike and mistrust of computers. Not being interested in or knowledgeable about computer science, I have usually deferred to Elisa, who is more of a digital native, on many computer matters.
One technical aspect of the blog that I have taken the slight lead on, however, has been in the area of Internet security. Because I live in a major city and work with the public, I see the world as a vaguely hostile spider web of mostly low quality encounters: spammers, panhandlers, handbill passers, junk mailers, telemarketers, litterbugs, maniac drivers, people who bring crying babies and loose dogs to bird sanctuaries, etc., are all around–and they are up to no good! And so it goes on the Internet. Spam and near-spam vastly outnumbers legitimate e-mails just as junk mail vastly outnumbers letters from beloved friends and relatives, hundreds or thousands to one. Thank heavens for robust spam filters!
One of the lowest quality encounters, of course, is the theft of your material. There is no question that if someone wants to steal your images (or flood your site with rubbish e-mails and thus steal your time), then they can. All you can really do is make your material a slightly harder target than the next guy’s. Some easy, common sense techniques to protect your images include:
1) Signing images in the file names (within the theme) as well as on the image itself (in Photoshop or similar program). I reject watermarks as image-destroyers, and adopt the signing philosophy of W. Majoros in his fabulous Secrets of Digital Bird Photography—namely, inconspiculously and stylishly, often blending in places, and in a shade of the local color.
2) Resampling, resizing and web-optimizing (in Photoshop or similar program). Making the file size from about 150 to 250 kB in size allows it to load fairly fast and isn’t high enough resolution to be much worth stealing. If someone wants a higher quality version, then they can ask.
3) Using a right-click disable plug-in. Only people with more than a modicum of computer ability can get around this.
4) Do not link to the image within the theme. This can render some right-click disable programs useless.
5) Copyright notices in every post and page and in the margins at least informs would-be thieves that you care about your material and may fight back.
6) Google yourself from time-to-time to see if anyone has stolen content.
7) Try to maintain a sense of humor.
This duck had a low quality encounter with a human: on an otherwise lovely spring morning, a human took his picture. Muscovy Duck Portrait taken at Hermann Park, Houston. Photo taken hand-held with a Canon EOS 7D/100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS. This image has been resampled, resized, and web-optimized in Photoshop Elements 9 to a size of 205.3 kB. The original file, of course, is many times this size. “Muscovy Duck” is a name that makes no sense and is of obscure origin. Strangely, Muscovy Ducks are native to Mexico and parts of Central and South America (not the Moscow region). Feral and domestic populations are scattered across the U.S. and southern Canada.
“Nature photography is not easy. If it was, then everyone would do it.” –C. Cunningham
Seaside Sparrow in a Characteristic Pose at McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge, Texas Gulf Coast. This sparrow has an extremely limited range in the U.S., the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts. Photo taken in August under natural light.
American sparrows (Family Emberizidae including longspurs, seedeaters, towhees, juncos, and sparrows) may be among the least appreciated of all birds, but they can be charming–although treacherous to photograph with their quick movements and often suspicious natures. They can also be tricky to identify. Based on their huge numbers they are among the most ecologically significant of all birds. Please take a look at our new sparrow collection.
Young House Sparrow at the Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary, Houston. Although this species is probably most peoples’ concept of a sparrow, House Sparrows are not American sparrows at all. House Sparrows are members of a Eurasian group called weaver-finches and were introduced into North America in the 1850’s.
