Barker Cypress with a Camera

I birded the CyFair campus for an hour again yesterday morning, this time with a camera. Because of the recent rain, I spent much of the hour sloshing around in ankle deep water - and keeping one eye out for Cottonmouths.

There were many of the same birds as on previous days, although this time the only warbler was a solitary Pine. I saw at least three Eastern Phoebes.

Eastern Phoebe

New birds for the week included a Song Sparrow, and a flyover by Rock Doves. Our resident Red-tailed Hawks were back and hunting but they never came close enough to photograph.

Sedge Wrens clicked at me everywhere I went and I finally got a couple of pictures. They're not good photos but they're the first I've ever gotten of this species.

Sedge Wren

Blue-gray Gnatcatchers were also much in evidence. No photos, though. They move about too quickly to catch easily with my digital camera, which has a 1+ second delay between pressing the shutter and taking a picture. (So I have lots of pictures of branches where Gnatcatchers had been only a second earlier!)

Flowers abound at present and therefore there are lots of butterflies also, including Monarch, Common Buckeye and Gulf Fritillary. Again, the shutter delay on my camera makes it hard to get good photos: You have to press the shutter before the wings open in order to get a reasonable picture.

Monarch

Monarch

Gulf Fritillary