Hi Rachel and welcome to DFW! It's predicted to get to 28 tonight (a blue moon too) and 32 Friday night, but hopefully it will be dry! We had snow on Tuesday and I saw my first and second ever Northern Flicker(s).

Cedar Hill State Park is a great place for birding! I saw my first male painted bunting there, which was instrumental to my developing interest in bird watching!

Pam

Thanks-we saw that blue moon!

It was raining and near freezing temps when we set up our tent Thursday afternoon after driving for 17 hours. But when we returned from a New Year's Eve swing dance the sky was clear and the full moon was so bright we even pulled the cover over the screen tent.

Even though the parks were packed with birds when we were there in Feb. 2005, for some reason we saw few birds over New Year's weekend, even when we drove to the Ft Worth Nature Center and Refuge marshlands. Most of the few birds we saw are also here in Kentucky.

Still, I got some photos with the Canon 40D, and sure enough, the camera was a little slow and the auto focus often soft

Ruby-crowned Kinglet {{!gwi}}From Christmas 2009

I'll put the other photos on a new post.

I checked online tonight and found another camera store selling the Canon EOS 7D low enough that I might go for it again

Fort Worth Nature Center is 6 miles from my house! I thought about you on Thursday in that miserable drizzle and hoped you had refuged in a hotel :-)

Beautiful Ruby-crowned kinglet! I've not seen one of those here yet.

Pam

Kinglets and other species usually travel with mixed noisy flocks of Chickadees and Tufted Titmice, so when I hear them coming I stand near a bird crossing with low trees, sun at my back, and try to get a shot as they sweep past. You have to be quick, with a fast AF, since there's no time to manually focus..hence my wish for a Canon EOS 7D!

Luckily, they seldom seem to notice me, altho the way they plunge from twig to twig doesn't make it easy.

Your photos are always amazing and reveal a lot about each bird. Thanks for keeping us posted about your travels.

I think you and your husband get so much out of life - it is an inspiration.

Thanks! It helps that we are empty nesters and work partly from home so we can get outdoors. Besides, if I hide in a hotel I think I'm a "wuss" and subtract points. My husband is unusual..can't think of any man who would camp in freezing rain in the middle of winter and go swing dancing on New Year's eve instead of watching the college bowl football games. At his age (the same as mine-57) he's in great shape and able to keep up with me although he thinks of the outdoors as an exercise gym and often misses the point of my birding activities.
For instance, while I was crouching in the underbrush photographing Green-winged Teals through the branches at the Ft Worth Center for Wildlife marsh his cell phone rock music suddenly began blasting (he'd waited for me on the trail above), then he began talking! The entire flock exploded out of the water was gone in seconds. I laughed and once again suggested he keep his phone on "vibrate" and move away from the area to answer
{{!gwi}}From Christmas 2009

Great photo of the Teals Rachel. I live fairly close to the Ft. Worth Nature Center. The last time I went, I didn't get any good photos, just a couple ticks-yeck. Your hubby is a good sport to drive all that way and camp out in a tent. Good thing it was last weekend. We'll be in single digits here this Thursday and Friday.
Robin

Thanks!-and I agree with you about DuBois being a good sport about it all. It's been cold here, too-so cold that we've not camped since we got back. For one thing, the snow's been too deep!

Still, it's been great weather to follow wild animal tracks

When I checked reviews I found that all online stores selling the Canon EOS 7D at bargain prices were being reported as bait-and-switch scam centers that kept your money, didn't deliver. Not only is the camera being sold only at full price, the 5 hr batteries and superchargers are also extremely high. So I continue to try to find ideal conditions to use my Canon 40D.