Hi All,

I have been hiding out at home near West Yellowstone photographing birds in my yard. I had a few common redpolls, one hairy woodpecker that like to "remodel" my wood home, and huge flocks of black-capped and mountain chickadees. I begin two weeks of leading photo tours in Yellowstone and then I am going to Texas for a couple of months. (They tell me there is less snow in south Texas-sounds good to me after enduring it for three months already).

I have never photographed along the Texas coastline, so I would appreciate hearing about any sites where there are lots of birds that can be approached with full-frame 840mm range. I do know of some of them. I am teaching bird photography at Laguna Seca and know about Smith Oaks Rookery, Bolivar Flats, Brazos Bend State Park, Anahuac NWR, Leona Turnbull Birding Center, Paradise Pond, Estero Llano Grande State Park, Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, and South Padre Island Birding Center. Can anyone offer more sites where lots of birds can be photographed well in Texas? Thanks for anything you can offer.

By the way, I bought the Canon R5 in October and used it for all the photos you see here. Indeed, I have only used the R5 since I got it, and my Canon 1DX Mark III is patiently waiting to be used again-not sure that will happen. Also, I am selling all of my shorter Canon zoom lenses as I have replaced them with the Canon RF lenses that now cover everything from 15mm to 500mm. You can probably tell what I think of the R5-it is a huge game-changer!!!!!! And when the rumoured R1 comes out sometime this year---whoa! Again, thanks for any help you can offer on Texas. I have a need to photograph far more birds in warmer weather-and Texas sounds like the spot to do that!