Hey Gang!

Today we are going over the second part of my trip to Sheldon Lake State Park back on 2019-01-05. We will check out some more pictures I took that didn’t make it to the video, and I will babble some more about the day.

This cardinal was absolutely handsome in his breeding plumage. Extremely bright red and looking fine for the ladies! They can be quite fierce though and will defend their territories. There has been many a times when a pair of cardinals came after me because I was too close to where they were hanging out. So, be careful if you are walking amongst them, and they are feeling feisty. They will come after you too!

Sheldon Lake is a lot of fun. With all of the ponds there from when it was a fish hatchery you get so many chances to see different wild life, at each pond. It is like each pond has its own ecosystem. Different animals and plants are in each one, so each pond is like changing a channel on the TV. Some are just birds, some have snakes, some gators and river otters oh my!

The other side of the park has the coastal prairie, where a whole other ecosystem lives. The area is awesome as a whole.

This cute little guy, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, are fun to watch, but hard to capture! They bounce around quickly looking for their snacks of bugs and insects. Quite often you will see several of them around, so it it can make it even harder to decide which one to focus on as they jump around.

The day was pretty cool, so finding the reptiles was not easy. There were no snakes or alligators to be seen anywhere. But the frogs and turtles did eventually come out.

This Red-eared Slider came out to check things out. Sadly someone took a chunk out of the side of its head so you cannot see its red ear. But, that is Pond Life. Everyday is a struggle for survival.

Shortly after seeing this guy it was time for me to head on back. So, I packed up my gear and started the drive out. And luckily as I was driving out, the Kingfisher that almost hit me on the way in to the park was chilling on a tree, and I was able to check it out and take a couple pics of it… Check out the video to see that guy!

Today we are talking about my latest video that went live yesterday. Part One of my VLOG where I was at Sheldon Lake State Park on 2019-01-05.

Yes, I’m blogging about my vlog. And I will tend to do that, blog about a vlog. This way I can bring you some more behind the scenes information as well some extra images that don’t make it to the video for whatever reason. Like this one….

This great blue heron was just walking around the bank of the first pond, and was in some absolutely gorgeous morning light. It was really hard to walk away from him to go find other images to take.

Let’s keep in mind that the day started off in the upper 30s fahrenheit (3-4C) so it was a chilly day to start with. But the temperatures did warm up as the day went on and we ended up with upper 60s (18-20C.) Let’s also keep in mind that there are alligators in the park. Especially these first two ponds I’m visiting. Because it was cold in the morning there was no real issue with the gators, since they were hunkered down in the water someplace. But as the temperatures warm up, they will rise to the top of the water and crawl out on to the banks to get some of those sun rays. So you always need to make sure you are aware of your surroundings when taking photos!

The above great egret was also at the same pond chilling out in the wonderful lighting and I was able to get a couple really nice reflection shots of it like the above one.

I’m still learning the whole DSLR camera game, and the Sigma 150-600 lens is my second lens. This is the second time I took it out to get some photos and I was really impressed with how nice the images are. The only issue I have with the lens, which could be a completely user error at this point, is you have to kick start the auto focus. If it is completely out of focus when you goto take the image, and you try to auto focus, it just won’t. You have to get it a bit in focus before the camera will take over and focus for you. A bit of a pain when you are in a rush, but I have yet to really sit down and play around with things to see how to make that better.

With the whole learning still, I still do something that some people are against, and some people are for, which is cropping. Most of the images you will see in my videos are cropped, up to this point anyways. The images above were also cropped. The next image is not cropped, then after it will be the image after I cropped it so you can see what I see and do with them.

A lot of the things I take images of are quite far away and even at 600mm don’t quite fill the frame as you can see with the cute little grebe there. So, I crop. Sometimes though, I do manage to get up close and personal with some images and don’t need to crop them, which of course is preferred.

And that is about all I have for today. Please check out the video below and enjoy. And of course, stay tuned for Part Two soon!

Cheers Gang!

What a great day for a trip to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge!

The map to the left shows Friends of Anahuac Refuge Nature Store. This is where the entrance to the fun starts. So if you want to find your way here, punch that into your ole GPS.

Speaking of GPS, cell service down this way is spotty, so you may want to make sure you have your maps preloaded if you are using your phone, or use a real GPS to find your way around down there.

There were many different birds, some pancake snakes and several alligators spotted during this excursion. It’s always a blast coming here and seeing all the different fauna and flora. So many different varieties of each!

I was there longer than I expected I was going to be, which led to a lot more photography and videoing of the goings on. Because of this, a normal vlog got turned into four parts, as seen below!