East Texas Naturalist Blog

I love living on the lake. Many mornings, as soon as I am dressed, I open my front door, sit on my steps and watch whatever may be happening on the lake or on my bird feeders right in front of me.  Not a bad way to start the day.

This morning is a bit chilly, but not bad.  It is overcast, quiet and peaceful.  I have been drinking my coffee on my steps watching a large flock of canvasback ducks (Aythya valisineria) feeding and cavorting just off shore.  There are probably 40 to 50 of them drifting back and forth.  Each one occasionally ducks his head (no pun intended) beneath the water and quickly disappears as it goes underwater to feed.  Sometimes it seems as if there was a signal given and almost all of them go at once leaving a dozen or less still on the surface.  Good entertainment for a quiet morning.

The canvasback ducks don't usually come down to the more open waters near me.  They are normally in the more secluded shallow water that has lots of little islands and inlets.  That shallow water provides a lot of nutrients in the way of buds, snails, tubers, roots and insect larva that makes up most of its diet.  It is also more secluded and normally away from human activities.  However, it is still duck season and the area where they normally stay is not a safe place.  Down here, closer to human activities and in the open is definitely safer for them.  That is good for me for I get to shoot them now.  Yes, it is a bit of a cliche, but I am shooting them with a Nikon.  

From an early age I have been fascinated with wasps.  In fact one of my early memories is of reaching out to grab a paper wasp nest.  They did not appreciate the gesture. 

The stings did not make me stay away from them.  A few years later, we had a wasp nest on our porch and I would climb up with a wide mouthed jar and quickly put it over the nest so I could get close and look at the nest and all the wasps.  Naturally, all of the wasps were not on the nest at the time and when one that was out flying around came back, I would be stung again.  Usually more than once.  For when the returning wasp stung me, I would drop the jar and before I could get down, the other wasps that were on the nest, under the jar, would also take their shots at me.  They were a little excited from the jar over the nest and my face a few inches away.  When they suddenly could get to me, they stung me, too, sometimes repeatedly.  Imagine that.

They have always been interesting to me and I have messed with them and their nests time and again.  I used to have a collection of nests and dead wasps pinned to them so they looked like they were still alive working the nest. 

The recent high water has gotten the wildlife moving.  Alligators may have been on the move.  A combination of high water and the breeding season has alligators crossing the roads and moving into ponds they have not been in before.  This is likely just a temporary result of the flood waters.

Alligators are a very mobile species.  In north east Texas, they can show up in some of the most unlikely places.  While it is important to remember that these are wild animals and all wild animals are inherently dangerous, generally alligators seek to avoid human contact as best they can. 

American alligator was listed as anendangered speciesby theEndangered Species Act of 1973. Subsequent conservation efforts have allowed their numbers to increase and the species was removed from the list in 1987. Alligators are now harvested for their skins and meat. The American alligator is a listed game species in Texas. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Outdoor Annual 2014-2015 dedicates an entire page, (page 66 in the 2014-2015 publication), to alligator hunting regulations. It is essential that the Alligator Hunting Regulation pages of the current Texas Parks and Wildlife Outdoor Annual be studied and referenced before attempting to take alligators.

Yesterday, Saturday the 5th of December, I went on a field trip with fellow Texas Master Naturalist, Kristi Thomas.  Kristi also publishes her photographs on this website as well as writing a blog here.  She is an outstanding photographer and a great contributor to this website. 

She had also invited members of NETFO (Northeast Texas Field Orinthologists - http://members.tripod.com/netfo_tx/) for an event at Lake O' the Pines.  Part of the trip included a boat ride to observe water birds and visit a nesting location for Bald Eagles.  

Seeing the eagles and their nest was a treat and we have had some minor discussion about the eagle's nest in our talk forum - http://easttexasnaturalists.com/forum/bird-sightings/45-bald-eagles-nest-on-lake-o-the-pines.html.  One of the things we talked about was the location of the nest.

There are many ways to practice the art of photography but to me there are two basic approaches with a wide variety of offshoots from those.  

I have referred to these techniques or styles as shotgun and sniper.  I have used both but honestly I have many, many more shotgun photos than I have as a sniper.