When we fly from California to Texas for the holidays, I always leave my larger cameras and lenses at home and rely instead on my compact Fujifilm Finepix AX and phone camera. So I do miss out on the occasional wildlife shot as I’m strolling around the man-made lake near my in-laws’ house — although sometimes if I’m paying close attention, I get lucky! (All photos are from December 2021 unless otherwise noted.)

December 2016

2016

2019; I love the detail of tiny claws on its feet

Near dusk, I thought I noticed something at the edge of the reeds but couldn’t identify it with my own eyes, so I shot a picture. That didn’t seem to help much, and I tried moving a bit closer. I guess I made this Blue heron nervous — it left its original spot and moved further away from the shore, where I was finally able to identify it, even if the picture isn’t especially sharp!

Common Goldeneye, 2019

I had a lot of trouble getting a good shot and this was the best of a bad bunch — not only was I losing the light, but the wind was ripping and kept knocking my hand away from the sign where I’d braced my camera.

Although relatively small, this man-made lake absolutely has bass living in it as well as small mosquito fish; here, the Big Guy and his dad try their luck near the spillway. Fishing at the lake is open only to residents of the neighborhood and their guests — and local wildlife, of course.

2019