Specialty birds in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX - Part 3 - Clay-colored Thrush and Black-crested Titmouse

INTRODUCTION

This is a continuation of a visual checklist of my efforts to capture images of birds that in the United States are seen primarily in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The series is merely a visual checklist. The descriptions of the birds are terse.

The Clay-colored Thrush and the Black-crested Titmouse are featured in this post.

The combination of the Olympus OM-1 camera and the 150-400 mm f/4.5 TC lens was used to capture all the images displayed in this series.

Clay-colored Thrush, Quinta Mazatlan, TX
Focal length: 500 mm
1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 8000
Handheld

The Clay-colored Thrush is brownish overall. The belly is lighter. The throat has dark streaks.


The range of the Clay-colored Thrush includes eastern Mexico and extends to northern Colombia. A northern extension that includes the most southern regions of Texas has occurred in recent years.


Black-crested Titmouse, South LLano River State Park, TX
Focal length: 320 mm
1/2500 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 6400
Handheld

The Black-crested Titmice is gray above, whitish below, has peach-colored flanks, a white forehead and a black crest.


Black-crested Titmouse, Valley Nature Center in Weslaco, TX
Focal length: 400 mm
1/400 sec @ f/4.5, ISO 6400
Handheld


The range of Black-crested Titmice includes northeast Mexico, Texas and extreme southwest Oklahoma.


David Sparks

I retired in 2005 after 40 years of research and teaching at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (24 years), the University of Pennsylvania (8 years) and the Baylor College of Medicine (8 years). Photography is my retirement hobby.

Nature photography, especially bird photography, combines a number of things that I really enjoy: bird-watching, being outdoors, photography, travel, messing about with computers, and learning new skills and concepts.  I now spend much of my time engaged in these activities.

David Sibley in the preface to The Sibley Guide to Birds wrote "Birds are beautiful, in spectacular as well as subtle ways; their colors, shapes, actions, and sounds are among the most aesthetically pleasing in nature."  My goal is to acquire images that capture the beauty and uniqueness of selected species as well as images that highlight the engaging behaviors the birds exhibit.