It has been a while since I’ve gone out to take photos on the weekend, and I’ve been thinking about it for a little while. I finally bit the bullet and scheduled my visit to Brazos Bend State Park. Although this park doesn’t have the sexiest landscapes for photography, the park does have real trails and a lot of them. Some of my favorites are by the lakes where you can see a lot of wildlife.
Weather
We had some rain come through on Friday and we had scattered storms forecast for Saturday morning. As I was heading it out, it had started to rain, but I brought a rain jacket, and was ready to weather the weather.
Fortunately, by the time I arrived at the park, there was no rain, I only had to deal with some light sprinkles.
Trail
Since this was the first time I’ve been out in a while, I wanted to stick with a tried and true trail to get started. I went with the Elm Lake Loop Trail. It was 2 miles around Elm Lake, not the most scenic lake, but it is home to a lot of wildlife. There were puddles in a few places, and I did get some mud on my boots, but fortunately, I have waterproof boots, so it was no worry. It was very humid.
Wildlife
I parked on the far side of the lake (west) and took it clockwise. The hike started off slow with minimal wildlife. I did see deer tracks, but I didn’t see any deer. The ground was quite damp which made the deer tracks more apparent. As I was hiking I saw something small moving, and as I approached, I could see that it was a crawfish. I was able to get off a couple of shots before he spotted me and went full defense. Interestingly, as I moved positions, it did not change, so that’s how I was able to get this side view. That was shot on my 135mm F/1.8, it was still fairly dark out, so I had to crank up on the ISO.
As I continued down the trail, I could really hear the frogs going, there were several birds, but I didn’t see any gators yet. When I got to the southwest corner of the lake, that’s where the gators were. I put on my CP and switched to my 100-400mm. We’ll see, but if I keep making visits, that new Sigma 300-600 F4 might become necessary.
One of the gators had some stuff on its head, I found this amusing because it was like it was wearing a hat.
I didn’t see any more gators after this, so I started focusing on the birds. I had a cardinal, egrets, ibis, and heron.
I was trying out a new bag, a messenger style, and after about an hour, it was starting to wear on me. I still need to figure out a better way to carry my gear whilst hiking. My backpack is nice, but it isn’t easy to make adjustments on the fly.
I did bring my tripod with me, which didn’t help with the weight, and I ended up not using it. Given the conditions, I didn’t really want to sit down on the ground, and elevating the tripod to standing height wouldn’t have made for interesting photos.