Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Bird #2

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Bird #1

This and the next dozen posts will be of various birds in the three avian areas of the zoo (besides the flamingo pond): what I'll call the sidewalk exhibit area, where you walk along outside looking into cages are lined up for viewing; the tropical exhibit, where you go inside and are right there with the birds (though they avoid you); and the bird house, where there are enclosures behind glass, as in the reptile house.  Because I don't know or remember their names, I'll simply designate them with a number in the order they were captured by the 850.  Thus, this is "Bird #1".

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Flamingo Waterfall

They say that it's difficult to do hand-held shots with the 850, but for the most part I beg to differ...a steady hand with a VR lens will do just fine.

For shots like this, though, with a shutter speed of 1/6 second, you do have to do something.  Fortunately there was a wooden fence enclosing the flamingo area and I was able to use my radiulna tripod, which goes with me everywhere.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Flamingos Through Reeds

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Sleeping Flamingo (?)

The Bigger Cahoona, coupled with my chosen beginner 74-300mm lens, creates tack-sharp photos that are super easy to zero-in on, as can be seen by the eye in this photo (click to enlarge).

In that position, isn't this guy supposed to be asleep?

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Flamingo Fight

These two fought for a good while, not letting up on each other for about ten minutes.  Fighting and courtship displays are two things an animal photographer strives to capture, even if it's in a zoo...

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Reddish Flowers in the Shade

Captured these flowers, and all of the other pictures in this series, hand-held with a relatively slow lens.  Even in lower light conditions such as the reptile house and in the shade where these were, the Bigger Cahoona did well, contrary to some reports about how a tripod is a must with a very-high resolution camera.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Shoebill

Now to begin with birds.  What an incredible variety of creatures on this planet!

My son informed me that this is a shoe bill, which makes perfect sense.  A fairly tall bird, this one standing right at four feet, the heavy, down-turned brow gives it a stern, mean look, but Wikipedia claims it to be fairly docile.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - The Fly Has Landed / Pennies from the Sky

All of God's creatures are beautiful in a way.  Attended a talk at church last night (Feb 4th) and learned how complex the DNA strand of an amoeba is...then to think about that of a fly, or us!  Incredible stuff.
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Flies were everywhere growing up in Orange.  This was a time when houses weren't quite as sealed as they are now, and air conditioning not as common, so folks kept their windows open more.  So the flies came in.  There were so many in one area of our house - the playroom, which had the windows open most of the time - that my mom paid us kids a penny apiece if we brought them dead to her on a paper plate.  One day my brother Allan earned a whole dollar for a hundred of the buggers (pun intended).

Then one of our neighbors, Tim Lewis, caught wind of the opportunity and came over to present flies of his own, claiming they were executed on premises.  He was fired once Mom discovered the ruse...

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Castle Spire

This picture was taken in the vicinity of the Cypress Circle Cafe, and was part of the "Zoo Lights" exhibits for the 2017 holiday season.

Houston Zoo with the Bigger Cahoona - Candy Fence Garnish

Color is king.  This shot was taken to test the color accuracy of the Bigger Cahoona, which far surpasses even what was possible with the Big Cahoona, which was pretty good.  In the hundreds of keepers taken so far (this is being posted on February 3rd, after many shoots with the Bigger Cahoona), very little color correction if any at all has been necessary.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Cypress Knees

Tried many times to capture a pic such as this out in nature, but suppose nothing can beat the controlled conditions in a zoological garden.

This shot was taken next to the Cypress Circle Cafe, which has remained exactly the same for the fifty-plus years I've been visiting the zoo.  No more, though; the area is now under renovation and will be updated and modernized, a change for the better in the works...

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Red Bloom

Never could get the Big Cahoona to focus on the little hairs at the end of a pistil such as this, but such was handled beautifully by the Bigger Cahoona (seen better by clicking to enlarge).

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Baby Giraffe

This guy was born recently here in Houston, which hit all the papers.  Magnificent creatures, these - so beautifully odd looking, so big, yet so quiet and seemingly gentle...

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Chimp at Rest / Simian Intelligence

Would be interesting to have a picture-captioning contest on this one!

These guys and the great apes are so human-like that it's hard to believe that there is another subspecies that is even more like us than chimps and gorillas, and that would be the bonobos.  I didn't even know bonobos existed until just a few years ago, when I chanced upon some videos of them on YouTube.  Then I saw some for the first time at the Cincinnati Zoo a couple of years ago, where some behaviors were downright spookily close to ours.

Another aspect entirely of all this is that the simian species - particularly the great apes - experience a wide range of emotions parallel to our own.  This would include tendencies to become bored and depressed in certain conditions (see this post) as well as fun-loving and entertaining in others, all a product of superior intelligence.  Perhaps even a sense of humor, or negative aspects such as sadism, depending on the disposition and personality of the individual.

One thing is for sure; these guys appear to be more prone to react more intelligently to their surroundings.  There is a place called the Snake Farm between Austin and San Antonio.  A few decades ago they had a gorilla there in a cage no more than a dozen feet square.  If you can imagine such a strong and intelligent beast being confined to a space that small year after year and what it would do to you, this animal's behavior can hardly be surprising.  He would sit there with a benign expression on his face until visitors got real close to the cage for a good look, then he would reach back and sling his feces right at them!  There was a sign there warning of this behavior.  Thankfully in time the gorilla died - or was rescued - and no longer there to entertain himself in such a manner.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Gorilla Portrait

Looking at this post back on February 26th and the picture above, it's obvious that animals can take portraits that are even more endearing as any featuring a person.

A shot like this was only possible because of the extraordinary resolution of the Bigger Cahoona, coupled with the incredible reach of the beginner lens I bought, as can be seen in the shot below, which gives an idea of how far away this subject was:

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Bee on Flower

Now this is the photo that provided the Aha! moment that justified the trouble and expense of acquiring the Bigger Cahoona.  I followed this bee around for some time, snapping away with a shutter speed that made the pictures quite dark.  In post-capture, however, it was no trouble extracting the awesome color, light and detail that you see here...and this is cropped down to less than one-fifth of the photo!  Have it formatted to make a 16x20 print some day.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Fall Leaves

Another one of my definite favorites.  As stated when this series began, the flora can be just as captivating as the fauna in a place like the Houston Zoo.  This visit was back in November, and these leaves were nestled where they fell, making for an interesting (to me) contrast.

Same subject, different focus point below:

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Bamboo Edges / Connections #2

The other connection that comes to mind is one that occurred after I was married and living in Houston.  My wife, Chenjean, and I went to see a show in Stafford of some singers that were famous in Taiwan, where she is from.  At some point between songs I made my way to the men's room, and on the way out just about ran into a guy who had very long black hair and looked to be in his late thirties or early forties.  As in the story written in yesterday's post, our eyes met for a moment before moving on - in this case me out of the restroom and he into the restroom.

To my surprise he appeared on stage later in the show as one of the featured singers!  Chenjean told me he was big back home, and that she used to listen to his music when she was in high school.

And also as in the story written about yesterday, not a year later we learned that the fellow had died, in this case of lung cancer.  Same reaction...sorrow that surprised me, and only because we had connected in the briefest of moments in what ordinarily would be a mundane moment in life...

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Bird Behind Grass / Connections #1

Moving on from the reptile house, encountered this bird along the way to other parts of the park.
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A few times in life I have been struck by our connectedness, and believe that we indeed are one, as the Bible teaches.  In addition to being a student of the Bible, I am a student of near-death experiences (having had one, sort of, when I was five years old) and have read thousands of accounts of those that maintain they've gone "to the other side" and returned to life on earth.  Almost universally they stress the oneness of humanity and how that results in the fact that our words, deeds, and even thoughts affect others in ways that we cannot even imagine (also supported by the teachings of the Bible).

A couple of times I have been struck by the briefest encounters that resulted in surprising reactions, and these involved famous people.  The first was in New York, while on a break from college to visit the family up in Delaware.  It was New Year's Eve 1982, and everyone was walking around all bundled up, me included.  I'd been at Rockefeller Center just looking around, and was exiting the building when a woman wearing a big fur coat got out of a limousine to go into the building.  Turns out it was Jessica Savitch.  Our eyes met for just a moment as we passed each other, and I didn't think much of it other than to say to myself, "Hey, that was Jessica Savitch."

On television the following year, in October of 1983, a news report came out that she'd been killed while driving in a heavy rainstorm.  Normally I wouldn't have thought much of a report like that, but immediately the moment came to mind when our eyes met, and I felt a sorrow that surprised me.  We didn't know each other at all, but that briefest encounter created a connection that I didn't even know was there until learning of the sad news.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Tree Boa

One of my favorites from this shoot.  Went for some other angles, as seen below, focusing on the water droplets.  In post-capture I thought, Why didn't I get these with the focus in the eyes as well?  To bridge the gap, on my next two visits to the zoo (after purchasing a membership) I made a beeline for this guy but never found him resting in the same position.  Oh well...one of the ones that got away!

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Dark Green Pit Viper

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Rattles of a Rattler

Not the business end, but one of the more interesting parts of this family of snakes.  So effective that many other species have evolved to mimic the sound by rattling their tails in dry leaves - namely coachwhips, king snakes and some of the rat snakes found here in southeast Texas, all of which I owned at one time or another as a kid growing up.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Rattler #3

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Rattlers #2

Took a moment before realizing that there were two snakes here...

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Rattler #1

Mean looking critters, these rattlesnakes.  Fascinating, though - engineered to perfection for what they do.  In this post almost exactly a year ago I wrote of someone we met through my son's Cub Scout pack, a bona-fide herpetologist who did some bona-fide research on rattlers.  They would fire a relatively slow-moving .45 caliber slug that would pass them at an oblique angle.  The snakes were so quick and their heat sensors so sensitive that they would actually strike at the bullet, popping their own heads off in the process!

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Ribbon Snake

These guys are all over East Texas...used to catch them all the time.  So cool that some species that use speed as a defense - as opposed to laying still in camouflage - have stripes running along the length of their bodies; certain whipsnakes are another example.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - King Cobra (?)

Know this guy was featured in an earlier post somewhere.  Think he might be a king cobra, but am not sure...need to get in the habit of snapping a pic of the name as well as the creature.

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Green Snake

Not sure what kind this is, but love all snakes that are green in color.  On a later visit to the zoo I captured this guy from a different angle and made the card below, "still in development" as they say.  The scales for the letter pattern came from one of its neighbors, an emerald tree boa:

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Camouflaged Vipers / The Rattlesnake

Very easy to run into one of these without knowing it - the zoo did a great job of equipping the cages to demonstrate the effectiveness of their camouflaged patterns.

The only time I've seen a rattlesnake in the "wild" was near Fentress, Texas, during a weekend stay at a cabin on the San Marcos River.  I'd gotten up long before the kids or other adults, so had time to go to the store to buy a few things for breakfast.  On my way back, on River Grove Road, a canebrake rattler was crossing the road.  I was right on it before noticing, and slammed on the brakes, backing up for a closer look.  After establishing that it was what I thought it was, I hurried to the cabin to get the kids up to have a look.  Unfortunately by the time we got back to the spot it had moved on.  Couldn't've gone far though, which made me just a little nervous...

Houston Zoo 2017 with the Bigger Cahoona - Chameleon

 Different focus point used for the card below: