Thanksgiving Break

My Thanksgiving break started a little early in two ways, one I left school almost a week early, and second I had the wake up the first morning at 4 AM to do call counts. The time was a killer, but it usually makes for a pretty amazing sun rise. So there I was on the first day of my break, up before the sun documenting the location of birds on the Swenson Ranch north of Abilene. Luckily I brought my camera along this time and got to experiment with low light photography. I learned that your foreground needs to be in focus to make a good shot, I'll master that next time. But here are a few shots from the first morning.

 I'm not sure if its the big or little dipper, but I was pleased with the photo. As I was watching the moon sink below the trees I took this picture, and for some reason the moon actually looks like the sun. I couldn't help but think of this poem that my friend wrote.

As the moon lingers beneath the mesquites, my mind is full of song. And I find that I am humming, softly. Only not to the words of any music, but to something else, some place else. It is a place where the majestic creations of earth fade into one with the being of my soul. I am humming to nature's exquisite melody while I wait to be captured by the approaching sunrise.   -Fowler

It is pretty cool watching the sky transition from a bottomless blue into a slight orange, and eventually just erupt with color. As the light begins to fill the eastern horizon the silence of the night is broken by the sounds of creatures beginning to stir. Then as the light begins to crawl across the tree tops you can start making out figures of animals. Once the sun was up I headed back home so I can get some rest and continue my break.

I spent the first couple days shooting at the local nature preserves. Once again I love how DFW is still in transition from Fall to Winter, so there is still color in the trees. I visited Elm Fork Nature Preserve for the second time, the first was when I was maybe 10 and in the Scouts.

 I spent a few minutes taking some pictures of birds, only to realize later that my camera was still in controlled shutter-speed, so those turned out terribly. I took about a million pictures of this snail, these are two of my favorite shots from EFNP.

(Sorry if you don't like snails)
My next big adventure of the tip was a visit to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. Which is a lie because there is no true wildlife in the center, but that's beside the point. It is always an amazing time seeing all the exotic animals and feeding the nice ones. Some of the following pictures may have been taken by lauren, we were both shooting on my camera.

This is a picture lauren took of one of the trees at the center. Once again I love how it is still fall in east texas.

Although he was not part of the actual park, I thought that the guy made for a pretty cool shot with the hills in the background. Plus lauren hates birds so it was funny to listen to her scream while I shot.

Although the park is filled with exotics from around the world, I thought that the "local" animals were some of this most beautiful/photogenic animals of the day.

This guy had a pretty cool mohawk.

Lauren's favorite part of the day was the giraffes.

On our way home we stopped by Dinosaur Valley State Park, another place I haven't been since I was a child. We had to stop by because lauren didn't believe me that there was dinosaur footprints in the riverbed. Even after seeing the first few that I pointed out she still didn't believe me until we came to the main track sight where she was amazed.

My last photo shoot was on Thanksgiving. I decided that I would brave the elements and go explore the creeks of Arbor Hills. I have already shot there, but this time I actually had my tripod, so i could take better motion shots. The creek was absolutely freezing, but I got a few good shots.

That is a brief summary of my Thanksgiving break. Sorry it took so long to post, maybe if I stay on top of things I won't have another never ending post. There are so many more pictures from the break but I don't want to drag on, maybe I'll make a Thanksgiving 1.2, Thanks for reading!