So what’s been happening these past couple of days is that I left the Rio Grande Valley, then found a place to stay not terribly far from Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in my quest for Whooping Cranes. It was very overcast when I arrived and expected to deteriorate so decided the next morning to push on in the direction of Florida though I did run out to the refuge on the afternoon of my arrival. Some White-tailed Deer were around and I did take a few shots but had to ramp up the ISO rating so high that the shots are pretty noisy. It was terribly dreary and - to add to my pain - this young buck had a little sparing match with another that appeared to be about the same age. It would have been great to shoot had there been any light because they went at it for several minutes (yeah, I tried flash but their eyes lit up like Roman candles as deer eyes always do).

Tonight we are just east of Tallahassee after 2 grueling days of driving and, by early afternoon tomorrow, we will be arriving at our home for the next few weeks in New Smyrna Beach (just south of Daytona). Given the fact that the weather I have been driving in and out of the past couple of days is heading to where I am heading, I doubt that there’ll be much photography going on. And I think I will probably need to allocate a little time for friends and family, anyway – some 7 months and nearly 40,000 miles later (a haircut is high on the list of priorities as well).

Birding from behind the wheel: One short stretch of the route I took from RGV to Aransas was along Texas Hwy 141. The first 12 miles were through open range; in that stretch I counted 18 raptors: 10 Red-tailed hawks, 4 Crested Caracaras, 3 American Kestrels, and 1 Harris’s Hawk. That works out to 1.5 raptors per mile and I would not have been surprised if there were more (but I had to watch the road at least part of the time and Roxie wasn’t counting birds of prey for me). Speaking of caracaras, I am certain I saw more along that entire route (starting from RGV) than I saw in over 6 years in Florida.

Also: Just a gentle nudge to remind everyone that I will be hosting the year’s final I and the Bird next Thursday, December 28. Please send your entry by Tuesday to:

kevin AT naturalvisionsphoto DOT com