On a cloudy day over Christmas break, I started the morning at Lake Morton and then made a stop to look for the Peregrine Falcon at the  Circle B Bar Reserve.  The Peregrine Falcon had been hanging around for several weeks, and I wanted to get some non-captive shots of this pretty species.

It was a gray, cloudy day.  I walked up the Heron Hideout trail, pausing to say hello to the Hooded Mergansers who have been hanging out in the water there.  They didn’t want to pose for the Beast.  So I put the Beast to work doing something different for him: landscape photography!  I love the marshy landscape at Circle B, and I’m trying to get good images of it throughout the seasons.  I used the Beast to take a series of portrait images, which I stitched together in Photoshop.

I headed down the Marsh Rabbit Run trail, where the Peregrine has been seen frequently, sitting in a  cypress tree.  It’s actually the tree on the far right in the image above.  That’s a very active tree these days – a Great Blue Heron nest is in it, the Anhingas and Double-Crested Cormorants use it to roost, and so does the Peregrine Falcon.  I spotted him sitting in the tree and wished I had the crop body with me.  A few minutes later, he took off, and I was glad that I had the 5D Mark III autofocus system.  It’s all good! :)

I will have to try again for the Peregrine on a sunny day!!

As I headed back to my car, a few people pointed out these baby alligators to me.  I’m not usually a big fan of alligators.  You see them so often at the Circle B Bar Reserve.  But these little babies were kinda cute with the way they were lying stacked on each other, sunning themselves.  So here’s a rare alligator shot from me… :)