Posts in Category: Florida
Great Egret in its Element
Great Egret, St Augustine Alligator Farm, St Augustine FL
One of the major delights of St Augustine is the wild bird rookery at the St Augustine Alligator Farm. The presence of such a number of alligators under the nest trees inspires confidence in the birds, and they nest in great numbers. Wood Storks, Great and Snowy Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Cattle Egrets, Tricolor and Little Blue Herons, White Ibis, and the occasional Green Heron. You can stand on the boardwalk right under the trees, often no more than 15 feet from the birds on the nest. Tricolored Herons, in particular, will land on the rail of the boardwalk within 3 feet of photographers. And these birds are not begging. They are not tame at all. They are just going about the busy business of nesting and raising young and totally ignoring the humans in their rookery. It is totally amazing.
And one of the delights of the Alligator Farm is the number of birds in flight on any given day, as they move about feeding and gathering nesting materials. There is almost always some bird in the air. And, again, they are close…often passing overhead withing feet, and sometimes flying between photographers and tourists on the boardwalk. Catching them in flight makes a challenge that few photographers can resist. There are lots of birds so you have lots of opportunity. The light is great…as only Florida spring light can be. And modern cameras have features that make Birds in Flight…well, not easy…but easier than in the past. Even the superzoom Point and Shoot cameras that I favor have Sports Modes that make BIF shots relatively easy. You still get more misses than hits, but you almost always bring home a few satisfying BIFs.
This Great Egret was taken in Sports Mode on the Nikon P900 at 260mm equivalent field of view. 1/640 @ ISO 100 @ f4.5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Great Egret Chicks are Beautifully Ugly!
Great Egret Chicks, St Augustine Alligator Farm, St Augustine FL
Yes, well, the title says it all: beautifully ugly! Only a mother could love…etc. And it is not like they are “nice” either. They are aggressive, single-mindedly competitive, noisy, and not particularly clean. 🙂 These are at the age when maybe even a mother does not love them! She is like: “Get out of my nest already!” Still, who can resist a pic or two when the nest is right in front of you. This was taken from the new Photo Pass only blind in the shade of the trees on the far side of the Rookery at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm and Zoological Park. Such an amazing place for bird photography. It is even worth braving the crush to tourists and other photographers 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. ISO 100 @ 1/800th @ f6.5. -.7 EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 2 tablet.
Egret Plumage
Great Egret, Gatorland Rookery, Orlando FL
Today we will drop back almost a month to my Space Coast Birding Festival trip.
The lovely breeding plumage of the Great Egret came close to killing off the bird. Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the lady’s hat trade consumed Egrets by the thousands, and the carnage sparked one of the first spontaneous conservation movements in the US…one that lead directly, if eventually, to the protection of most non-game birds within our borders. So you might say that these lovely plumes did their part to save the birds…all the birds in the US.
There are few places where you can get as close to breeding Egrets as you can at the rookeries at Gatorland and St Augustine Alligator Farm in Florida. These commercial ventures, whether you think them hokey or educational, have, in their own way, helped to save the birds as well. Providing a protected, alligator infested, pool with big trees over and surrounding is simply an invitation to Egrets, Herons, Storks, and Spoonbills to come and nest…and they do. And because there are people there everyday, they get used to the people, and nest withing feet of the boardwalks. This shot is a telephoto macro taken from about 20 feet at 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/1600th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Flight! Happy Sunday.
Common Tern, Merritt Island NWR
Birds in flight hold a fascination for most of us. Photographs of birds in flight…photographs that capture the dynamic of wing, feather, and air…the miracle of wing, feather, and air…are particularly fascinating. Such photographs are a wonder and a challenge. Photographically they are among the most difficult to capture…especially with anything short of a full blown DSLR and a medium to long telephoto lens…equipment costing many thousands of dollars and encompassing a daunting weight when carried into the field where the flying birds are.
All of which is why I feel so blessed to have an effective Sports Mode on my cameras of choice…the inexpensive, compact, versatile superzoom Point and Shoots that I carry. Sports Mode makes birds in flight a possibility…and a pleasure. I spent a delighted 45 minutes at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge photographing a small group of Common Terns as they fed. Such fun.
Flight is a spiritual dream for most of us…we picture angels with wings for good reason. The freedom and miracle of flight suits our spirits…represents a state of grace we can aspire to…because, of course, we feel like we should be able to fly, like we were born to fly. We dream of flying. Our spirits soar when we are in contact with the divine. We know that one day…one eternity…by grace in faith…we will indeed fly. Free. Happy Sunday!
Titusville Sunset
From Parrish Park looking back over Titusville FL
I woke this morning thinking it is time for something besides birds and critters. It seems Pic 4 Today has had a pretty steady diet of bird shots from my recent stay at the Space Coast Birding Festival…Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. So just to prove I did take my eye off the birds for a least an occasional moment…here is a sunset from the drive home from Merritt Island. I pulled over among the gull feeders at Parrish Park just before the bridge to catch the last rays. Of course I could not completely avoid birds…this is Florida after all…but the small flock of Skimmers and the two gulls are just grace notes to the sunset. 🙂
Sony HX400V in camera HDR. 130mm equivalent field of view. Three ISO 80 exposures. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
By the way: I am leaving on the first leg of a trip to Pico Bonito Lodge in Honduras today. The Pic 4 Today post may be irregular over the next week. Daily post to Facebook and Google+ are more likely. We shall see.
GBH Display
Great Blue Heron displaying on the nest. Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands, Viera FL
One of the features of the World Digiscopers Meet at the Space Coast Birding Festival this year was a day long competition with teams of two digiscopers in the field all day. The next day we all submitted 10 images per team for an informal show-down. All that was involved was bragging rights but the day produced some outstanding work. I teamed up with Jerry Jourdan, another ZEISS digiscoper. This shot is from our efforts on the day. This might be the most photographed Great Blue Heron in the world. It builds a nest on this particular palm stump at the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands every year. The tree is only yards from the berm and tour loop, so it generally attracts a cluster of cars and several long lenses set up on tripods.
ZEISS DiaScope 85FL, 40x fixed wide-field eyepiece, Sony RX100, and the Digidapter for ZEISS. Effective focal length equivalent was 1238mm. 1/1600th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro tablet.
Sitting Shrike
Loggerheaded Shrike. Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR
When all my flights going home to the blizzard hitting Maine got canceled for two days running, I rescheduled for late in the day on Wednesday, hoping against hope that the weather would be cleared out, and the airlines somewhat caught up. That meant that I did not have to be in Orlando until 2PM. I planned, after many days in the field and lots of images captured, to spend the time in my hotel room resting and catching up…but when the sun came up on a relatively calm day, I could not resist packing up, checking out, and spending my final hours in Florida back out on Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island. I had time for two loops of Blackpoint, and it was well worth the effort. On my second loop, still being ahead of schedule by almost an hour, I parked at the rest area and walked out as far as the observation tower on the Cruickshank Trail, messing about with my new digiscoping rig, and generally having fun. This Loggerheaded Shrike graced the trail with its presence…and it sat while I photographed it with the Sony HX400V (here) and while I set up and digiscoped it. What a bird!
Sony HX400V at just over 1000mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Snipe Hunt!
Wilson’s Snipe. Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands, Viera FL
Yesterday I spent the day photographing with my friend Paul Sayeh. This was Paul’s first trip to Florida, and I had a lot of fun showing him the birds and other critters at Viera Wetlands and Merritt Island (he likes Alligators and loved Armadillos). At one point I let him out of the car to photograph some White Ibis along the berm at Viera while I did some email and housekeeping in the car. When I finally decided to get out and see what he was up to, as I turned to close the car door, I caught a glimpse of a small bird like thing right at the water’s edge at the foot of the berm, tucked in some weedy growth. “Nah…” I thought, “that can’t be a snipe.” But it was! Snipe are never easy to see, and notoriously difficult to photograph. The most common view is going overhead at about 25 feet and 30 miles per hour. So I was just a little excited to find this one sitting. I got off some shots with the Sony at 1200mm equivalent, and when it still sat there, I got out the digiscoping kit and took several views at slightly higher magnifications.
ZEISS DiaScope 65FL with the Canon SD320HS behind the ZEISS 30x wide-field eyepiece on the Digidapter for ZEISS (made by the afore mentioned Paul Sayeh). Approximately 1300mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
I love Reddish Egrets!
Reddish Egret. Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, FL
Yes I do love Reddish Egrets. The way the dance about while hunting. The improbable aspects their bodies assume. The thing they do with their wings just before striking a fish (not always…but often…called “canopy feeding” as they make a shadow in the water so they can see through the surface). Their speed and awkward agility. They are fun to watch. Late yesterday, out on Blackpoint Drive, a group of birders and photographers were treated to a classing Reddish show as two Egrets hunted across a pool the size of a basketball court. The late afternoon light was spectacular. I tried Sports Mode on the Egrets…and it made catching the wing thing and fish strikes almost easy. The camera locked focus on the Egret and all I had to do is keep the bird near the center of the field as it pranced and posed and wait for the action I wanted. The camera kept the bird in focus. Totally amazing! And it yielded my best shots of Reddish action yet…and not just one shot…but a dozen or more definite keepers! You have to know how fleeting these poses are to appreciate how well the camera did…at least in my hands 🙂
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. 991mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet. I plan a post on Point and Shoot Nature Photographer on shooting active birds in Sports Mode that will undoubtedly feature more of the Reddish Egret shots. Keep your eye open.
Viera Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk. Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands, Viera FL
Next week I will travel to the tropics for the first time: Honduras and Pico Bonito Lodge, on a ZEISS VICTORY SF Experience trip, along with 20 other people. I am one of the “leaders” so I am working on putting together a light-weight, compact, spotting scope/digiscoping kit. Yesterday afternoon I tested it out a Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands, one of the best places in central Florida for bird photography. This Red-shouldered Hawk is regular there, using the same perches around the observation tower on the inner driving loop. It appeared on schedule and I got to photograph it to my heart’s content…testing various options on the camera and scope. It is a magnificent bird…on a small, compact scale. A fitting subject for a compact digiscoping outfit. 🙂
ZEISS DiaScope 65FL with the Canon SD320 behind the 30x wide-field eyepiece, for the equivalent field of view of a 1950mm lens. 1/640th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.