Aplomado Falcons!

Aplomado Falcons are a success story for reintroduction into So Texas after they were extirpated.

Today I birded areas near Brownsville including the Old Port Isabel Road which is the classic location for Aplomado Falcons as the USFWS has placed nest platforms up in this area for these birds. My pic is not great--hey, they were a good thousand feet away and it was late in the day with the sun going down. To even get this pic I had to use my 400 mm lens with 1.4 extender--with the 1.6 multiplier I get since the camera is not full frame, this gives me the equivalent of almost 900 mm. I saw one of the birds flying a little bit earlier but it was clearly on important business and moving fast. Both of these falcons are perched on one of the nest platforms for about 5 minutes while I scoped them so I got good views of their field marks before the sun went behind a cloud and the light decreased. SeEtta