North and South

© jmillerphoto.com – Green Anole

It has been a busy few days since the last post.  I was able to shoot on two of three days.  If I played my cards right I could have gotten a little shooting on the third, but that would have been pushing the envelope considering the higher priority task I had.

Wednesday’s trip was a quick jaunt south to Choke Canyon State Park.  I had never been to this park and it was worth the trip.  I concentrated my efforts on 75 Acre Lake, which is a smallish lake on the east side of the park.  I was a little unsettled by the sign warning me that Alligators exist in the park and I realized after some time around the lake that this would be the perfect place to find them.  So instead of exploring to great lengths, I concentrated my efforts on the west side of the lake, getting down to shore level in the couple of places where I could.  The wind was reasonably high so I wasn’t all that pleased with my performance.  But I did make some dandy images of Variegated Meadowhawks and I possibly have a Black Saddlebags keeper as well.

Thursday I went even further south down to Kingsville, Texas.  I would have liked to have done some photography down there as well, but that was a family business trip and photography did not make it above the line of activities to be had that day.

So today I went north, mixing some family business with photographic pleasure.  I spent a good swath of time at Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory, observing practically everything but the birds.  Green Anoles, Tree Frogs, Butterflies, Dragonflies, Damselflies, and the like.  I was within just a couple dozen images of filling my 16Gb memory card.  Yes, it was that good of a morning.

I also added a life list odonate:  Neotropical Bluet damselfly.  No image to post yet–I still have a load of images in queue before I get to those shots.  But a brief look at that one said that I did pretty well.  I also added at least one butterfly as well: The Goatweed Leafwing.  That was a little lower in the shot list so I expect to have a Flickr image posted before the weekend is out.

Oh, and the weekend.  I guess I still have 2 possible shooting days to go.  The one thing I won’t be doing is going very far.  The wrist is very sore at this point from all the driving.  Short trips… Yep, that’s the ticket.

About the Image:
This Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis) was awful cooperative with me.  Standard Gear was used without firing the flash (though it was on the camera), ISO 400, f/18 at 1/125th, on the tripod.