Some of my latest images

The deer have been quite active lately. We have had a very wet summer here in Texas. The grasses are lush so food is plentiful. These are wild white tailed deer that I photographed at the Fossil Rim Wildlife Area. The deer are not part of the supported wildlife there. They are a native wild species.

Buck



A different buck resting in the grass.



Fawn



Mom and fawn



Also, in my area of North Texas, I have found a colony of Mississippi Kites that spending the summer with us. I haven't seen them as much lately, but just a week ago, I counted nearly 15 in the evening skies. They eat mostly grasshoppers, dragonflies and cicadas and are very graceful flyers. I am not good enough to get a good shot of them in flight.

Here are a few shots that I took of some at dawn on my way to work last week.







Last weekend in the evening I found this juvenile eating a grasshopper.



And this adult was just ruffling its feathers.





Enjoy!

what kind of bird is that?

Thanks. More info here.

thanks for the info

I don't like the perch, but beggars can't be choosers. ;)

And I don't know if I'd ever seen a Kite before. Thanks for these!

graceful and quite vocal at times.

I especially love the one you caught of the buck resting in the grass... it's magnificent. They all are, but I can't stop staring at that one. Thank you for sharing.

Since you are in the area, you really ought to go down there and visit. If you have kids, they will definitely enjoy it.

We'll check it out... soon! :hi:

Well done, sir.

:thumbsup:

that Ptah because quite frankly I had been getting frustrated with my photography of wildlife. I just wasn't that satisfied. I really do appreciate that.

:hi:

...I wonder how hunters can take guns and go out and shoot them. What a travesty!

Thanks so much for posting. You can see the soft fuzz on the young buck's antlers. Beautiful photos!

hunters. I remember going out to "The Lease" in south Texas while my grandfather and uncle hunted. At the time, though, we always ate what they shot. Venison is actually quite good and deer will overpopulate an area if allowed. I could never kill an animal though. I'd rather let the wolves and other larger animals take the deer as Nature intended. I only shoot with my lens. I am glad that you enjoyed the shots.

I've never even heard of a kite before. Are they in the raptor family? They look cool.

I also really enjoyed seeing the velvety texture of the buck's rack.

:hi:

They are considered raptors. They are in their own family, but are closely related to falcons I would suspect. They are slender and very agile fliers. What is so neat about these guys is that while flying they will drop their talons and grab insects, usually cicadas, grasshoppers or dragonflies, in mid-air then eat on the wing. I actually snapped a series of that very thing, but I had one setting wrong on my camera so the photos did not turn out the way I wanted. :( More info can be found here.

:cry:

we do get red tail hawks, kestrels and peregrins, though....not to mention the occasional bald eagle.

don't worry, you'll get a shot of them in action next time, I'll bet. :hi:

Of course to photograph a peregrine would be sublime. I haven't had the chance. Here is one of my red tailed hawk photos.



And a kestrel

The door from the garage, which went into our office, was open and the poor little sparrow (who was flying in absolute terror away from the kestrel) flew right in and slammed itself into the sliding glass door which led out to the patio. It was killed instantly. :( But the kestrel didn't follow it all the way through and was stuck in our garage for over 36 hrs! It couldn't figure out how to come down low enough to fly out of the garage. At first I thought it was the poor sparrow's mom, and I felt badly for it having lost its "baby", but then I realized that was NO sparrow, it was big-ass bird!! We tried all sorts of tactics to get it to come down from the upper reaches of our garage, to no avail....We used the dead sparrow's body as bait, hoping to lure it down...We even left the garage door open all night hoping it would come out on it own, but it didn't. :eyes: Poor thing, it was obviously completely freaked out, too.

Finally the next morning I had to call a local non-profit called Native Animal Rescue. They eventually sent out a volunteer and she did more in 10 minutes with a long special pole with a net than we'd been able to do up until then. She managed to get the bird into the net and bring it down low enough so it could fly out from beneath the open garage door.

That kestrel was outa there so fast!!

It's an unusual story. Yes, it sucked that the sparrow died, but I'm glad the kestrel at least survived.

That's too bad for the sparrow, but it wouldn't be the only sparrow that lost its life, directly or indirectly to a kestel.

:D

How fortunate you are to have such abundant wildlife, and to be able to get such fabulous pictures!

These are wonderful!

The deer are especially gorgeous, although I do love the kites...

Did you use flash on the buck resting in the grass? It almost looks like it...

Anyway....keep 'em coming!

:yourock:

and was still overcast. Thanks for looking and commenting.

Your photos are always wonderful, the birds are beautiful, and you can look into theose deers' eyes.

We drove out west in VA today to some wineries and next to one of them was a family of 7 deer, just hanging out! We pulled up near them and they didn't run.. after we sat there some the smaller ones got further away but they were all still close. Of course I hadn't brought my camera.

Applalachian Mountains to photograph the black bears and other wildlife I don't see in Texas. Thanks for your nice comments.