Green Jay Heaven Part III

Chris and I have had 2 1/2 great days at the Cozad Ranch here in Linn, TX. I am dropping Chris off at the McAllen, TX Airport oh-dark hundred tomorrow and then heading back to the Cozad’s place to try for Caracaras.  I wanted to share a few more images from Roel Ramirez’s great place in Roma, TX.

On a hot morning this Green Jay jumped up on a perch after taking a bath in a woodland pool, soaking wet and pissed off at something.  With the 800 and the 1.4X TC I had too much focal length so I followed my own advice and created a few images hoping for the best.   The best of the lot can be seen below.  As always, you can click on each image to enlarge it. 

As you can see, I clipped the tail in the orginal.  I did, however, love the image but hated the clipped tail, so I used modern technology (can you say Photoshop CS3?) to add canvas left, make a copy of the tail using a Quick Mask, and then flop it, transform it, warp it, and put it pefectly in place so that the bird had a complete tail.  I am fine with folks wishing to call me a criminal or saying that the end result is a photo illustration, not a photograph.  As far as I can remember, the bird had a full and complete tail when I pressed the shutter button….

The males of this species perform elaborate displays where the extend their ruffs, bob up and down, and even stamp their feet.  They look like something out of the Victorian Age. 

On our last afternoon at Roel’s place, we created a set-up in hopes of enticing a Scaled Quail onto a perch of petrified wood.  We failed at that, but this stunning Hooded Oriole came to our orange and posed for a very few seconds.   Do realize that when working at a good songbird feeder set-up I might create as many as 1,000 images in a day while garnering only two or three that make me real happy.  Chris Dodds calls his best images “wall hangers.”  I call mine “family jewels.”  It was a fitting end to our wonderful stay at Roel’s place.