South Texas Bird Migration Mentor Series - The First Day

The next few posts will chronicle my visit to South Texas, where I attended a workshop that was part of the Mentor Series, who leads worldwide photo treks www.MentorSeries.com.  Their  treks range from 3 days to 7 to 10 days.
Our first day started off the morning with a program that included meeting, the mentors, Bob Smith and Layne Kennedy, who  presented a short program about their work and photography style.  The mentors then presented a camera settings question-and-answer session.

Northern Shovelers

Green-winged Teal

Ruddy Duck

Northern Shoveler - female preening

In the early afternoon, we departed for the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center in Port Aransas.  In order to reach Port Aransas, you have to travel across the ship channel in a ferry.  The Birding Center is on the outskirts of the sewage treatment plant and has a boardwalk leading out into the lake where you can observe and photograph the wildlife.  There were large numbers of ducks present, including Northern Shovelers, Blue-winged Teal, Green-winged Teal, Ruddy Ducks, and some Mottled Ducks..

Black-necked Stilts

American Avocets

Flights of Black-neck Stilts and American Avocets flew by. 

Northern Harrier

Northern Harrier

Northern Harrier's made their presence known..








Suddenly, out of the weeds came a huge flock of Night-Herons, Ducks, and a few Roseate Spoonbills. Other than a Turkey Vulture flying overhead.  We did not see any cause for the huge flight of birds.

American White Pelican

Rosette Spoonbills landing in the marsh grass

Rosette Spoonbills

Black-crowned Night-Heron - juvenile

These people had traveled down from Massachusetts for a sunny weekend of fishing

Fishing off the Pier

We finished off the day photographing at the Copano Bay Fishing Pier, where we were instructed on how to take motion blurs. In all, despite the cloudy and then rainy weather a great time was had on our first day.

Flower blur out of the camera with rear curtain flash