February 26, 2016
We drove into Brooker
Creek Preserve just before 8 a.m. and looked at the outside temperature
displayed on the instrument panel of the car…42 degrees! We changed our January
guided hike to a classroom session expecting this weather and ended up with a
warm day. Now, we get the weather for a February hike. A flock of Wild turkeys
rewarded our early arrival by parading across the road. We stopped to watch,
and a colorful and obviously possessive male approached the car, lifting his tail
and displaying his fan, before joining the rest of the group.
By the start time of
8:30 a.m., twelve of the twenty people who had signed up for the hike arrived.
When we get less than ideal hiking weather, some people understandably opt out.
Fortunately, the sun already started warming the air as we concluded the brief
classroom session and set out.
The cooler air kept
the reptiles we might normally see away, but as the air warmed the insects came
out, followed the birds. Gray catbirds, Yellow-rumped warblers, Blue-gray
Gnatcatchers, Carolina Wrens, and at least one Vireo flew among the trees directly
alongside the boardwalk. Several hopped and flew around the fallen limbs lying
directly in the water giving us wonderful photo opportunities showing the birds
in a native setting, rather than just portrait shots of the individuals.
I carried my Canon 7D
Mark II and decided for a change this hike to attach the 24mm – 105mm rather
than my usual 100m – 400mm birding lens. My first reaction to this gang of
birds was disappointment, thinking what I could have done with the other lens.
As I shot, I realized that this lens allowed me more creative flexibility to
take a different type of bird photograph than my usual.
Our next hike takes
place the last Saturday of March. We can’t make promises to what we might see,
but at Brooker Creek Preserve something always happens.
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| Peeking over his shoulder at me |
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| Vireo sitting still...briefly |
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| Yellow rumped warbler near an in-bloom airplant |
