Dave and I visited Water Ranch. It was a beautiful day and we spent about 3 hours walking around. We saw mostly the same cast of characters, but there were a couple that we don’t often see there.
I was finally able to photograph the Loggerhead Shrike. I saw one here a few years ago before I had the camera. I haven’t seen one since, though I know they aren’t that unusual here. I was hoping to photograph one with his meal stuck on a thorn, but I didn’t get that.
It seemed like the American Kestrels were all over the preserve. I took a lot of pictures of them, and had a hard time picking one for this post.
The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher was fun to see – it’s not common at the preserve. Dave and I spent quite a bit of time chasing it around, trying to get a good picture. It never sits still, and moves inside the shrubs where it’s hard to get a photograph. I took a lot of pictures, but deleted most, with about 5 ‘keepers’. I picked one to post.
The Cattle Egret is also not common.
I also included 3 photos from a trip to Rio Salado on 12/31/2013.
Here are the pictures:
