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Aransas National Wildlife Refuge - Whooping Cranes

James — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:42:50 +0000

Sarah and I got to visit the Whooping Cranes at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge - something we have wanted to do our entire lives. Just about the best way to see the cranes is aboard a shallow draft birdwatching boat called the Skimmer - operated by Rockport Birding and Kayak Adventures. The boat makes a three hour circuit through part of the refuge and has a viewing platform on the roof for photographers and birdwatchers. On the day we visited the weather was against us - with thick fog limiting visibility to about 200 yards for most of the trip, however we still had a great trip. We did see 8 or 10 individual whooping cranes, which was awesome - watching them picking fiddler crabs left right and center to eat. Other cool stuff: an osprey with a huge mullet, nesting great blue herons, various merganser ducks, buffle head ducks, and lots of different shore birds.

For those interested, there are now 266 whooping cranes in the Canada-to-Aransas flocks, up from about 100 in the 70’s. The cranes come to Texas in the winter to eat blue crabs and breed - and they can bee seen through about April 1 most years.

Smith Oaks Audubon Bird Sanctuary

James — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:53:19 +0000

Sarah and I went down to the bird sanctuaries at High Island last weekend. The roseate spoonbills and great white egrets are building their nests and starting to mate. Some of the GWE’s were sitting on eggs already.

Sarah took this photo of 3 roseate spoonbills using my camera and lens.

New Years at Big Bend National Park

Sarah — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:09:15 +0000

We spent five nights camping and hiking over New Years with friends. We started with one night at Seminole Canyon State Park followed by four nights camping in Big Bend National Park. The weather was pretty cold, but we didn’t have rain or snow, so the hiking was excellent. We had a great trip and took some cool photos.

Eastern Screech Owl

James — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:05:16 +0000

This little fella was outside my front door when I returned from a run this evening. He/she was kind enough to let me pass by and get my camera for a few snaps before it flew off.

Diving with Baby Sealions

James — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:05:01 +0000

So the day after Christmas, I went diving again (by myself) at the Coronado Islands aboard the Lois Ann. This is my favorite boat/outfit to dive with in San Diego (local) because they have such great service, an excellently laid out boat, and really good food. Can you believe they fed us quiche for breakfast after our first dive! Captain/owner Randy also goes out of his way (burning expensive diesel) to do whale and dolphin watching between the islands and Mission Bay.

For those in the know, the Coronados are a great place to dive with juvenile California Sealions during the winter time. They hang out at an ampitheater on the inland side of North Island - called Lobster Shack after a long-gone lobster fisherman’s camp - and are literally ecstatic to see the boat pull up with their new toys. Diving with the Sealions at Lobster Shack is more like playing at Romper Room in a snow-storm. It’s not that great for photography. But luckily the Sealions are happy to follow the boat around and dive with you at other sites - like the Keyhole. This spot is on the Southern tip of North Island and has great terrain, lots of flowing eel grass, and some nice bull kelp too. This is where I think I got my best shots:

Some photographic notes: For these shots, I was using the Canon 24mm L lens and dual Ikelite DS200 strobes. I think that 24mm is almost the ideal lens for these guys, as they aren’t that big (4-5 feet long) They guys can swim so fast and move their necks even faster, and I found that stopping motion isn’t possible, even with shutterspeeds of 1/125th of a second. So I got a LOT of motion blur in my photos. Motion blur can be a GREAT thing, and can really be used to showcase the speed or energy of a subject in a photo, however I wasn’t able to get the motion blur I wanted. I attribute this to the fact that my Canon camera will not do 1st (or rear) curtain sync with underwater non-eTTL2 strobes This to me is a major fault of Canon cameras, because other brands have no problem doing rear-curtain sync with just about any flash. So your options are to pan with the Sealion - which is do-able but really hard - and which results in a sharp subject but a blurred background. If you want a sharp background and a sharp subject with a blur trail behind it, you need to use an eTTL2 converter so that you can get the camera to fire the flash at the END of the exposure. This is what I’m going to try next time…

My first (and last?) kelp dive

Sarah — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:31:16 +0000

When I was about 9 years old I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium and was mesmerized by the 3 story kelp forest aquarium/exhibit. I decided that some day I would dive in a kelp forest. Well, after two somewhat unpleasant wetsuit diving experiences diving at the Coronado Islands over the past 4 or 5 years with James I told him that I would never dive in California again (or any cold water for that matter) unless I had a dry suit. As you can see in a recent post by James, I now have my very own, 1980s hot pink and green drysuit.

So, here are the photos of me, achieving one of my life’s goals, over Thanksgiving. I was very happy during this kelp dive, which was in about 50 feet of water at Point Loma, just outside Mission Bay in San Diego. I have to admit that I was suitably impressed by the grandeur of the kelp forest ecosystem. James even noted that I was doing a little victory dance while on the dive to express my excitement and approval. But I must let you in on a little secret. Even though these two dry suit dives, the first of my life, kept me significantly warmer that I had ever dreamed possible, and were much more pleasant than any wetsuit experience could possibly be, in the back of my mind, I was really doing a victory dance that said, “I’ve achieved what I set out to do, I’ve dove in kelp. I never have to dive in such cold and miserable water ever again. Hooray!”

Thankfully, James photographed this landmark event in all of its glory. I wasn’t comfortable enough with the use of my drysuit to take my camera on the dives, so we don’t have any photos of him.

California Diving “People Photos” Posted

James — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:54:21 +0000

If we went diving together last week in San Diego and you’re looking for a photo of yourself underwater, I’ve uploaded the photos to Smugmug where you can view them and purchase prints. Thanks everyone for some great diving!

Anza Borrego Backpacking - The Domelands

James — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:00:55 +0000

Before the Thanksgiving holiday, Sarah and I were lucky to get to go backpacking with my sister and Ben in the Anza Borrego State Park. The domelands are a series of weathered sandstone domes way out in the middle of the Coyote Mountains near Ocotillo. It’s about a 3.5mi backpack from the trailhead w/ a bit of elevation gain. We hiked in during the afternoon and it was nice and cool - which was good because we were each carrying 8 liters (that’s 17 lbs!) of water, plus our backpacking gear. We had a great campsite, and crystal clear skies to enjoy the panoramic view of the milky way, as well as the Leonids Meteor Shower.

Hiking up a wash, then up and into the Coyote Mountains

Our group at camp, and a view of a few of the sandstone domes

Before hiking out, we explored the canyons between the domelands and the Borrego Badlands below. The area is full of fossilized shells and sand dollars, and we found some amazing specimens (which we photographed and put back). Kate had heard of a slot canyon below the Domelands and we found it! The temperature was great inside the canyon, which narrowed to less than 2′ at some places, and also contained a few large bird nests amongst the crags.

The slot canyon, and a fossilized gastropod

The slot canyon, and fossilized Sea Biscuits

A special thanks to Kate for going with us on a wonderful trip!

Drysuit Testing and Training

James — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 05:10:01 +0000

Sarah and I want to do some dives while we’re in San Diego so we spent some time training in our drysuits’ in a friend’s swimming pool. Since we won’t be doing a lot of cold water diving, we both bought used drysuits which are “less than perfect.” Mine could use about 1 more inch of inseam (doh!) and Sarah’s has a charming pink and green color scheme We did some experimentation to see how much weight we need, some drills in regulating buoyancy, and just messed around. Unfortunately, Sarah’s suit has a leaky zipper, so we’re going to have to get that fixed.

Suiting up, discussing buoyancy, and doing an air dump excercises

Home from Korea, Netherlands, England

James — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 04:11:27 +0000

I’m happy to be back home. It turned into fall here in Houston while I was gone!

OK so this photo isn’t from Houston - but it’s certainly autumn-like