Posts in Category: Merritt Island NWR
Merritt Island Dawn
Dawn over the lagoons at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, FL
We were out at dawn yesterday to get in a few hours of birding and photography before the vendor area at the Space Coast Birding Festival opened for the day…so early that the gate to Blackpoint Wildlife Drive was still closed when we got there. So…we went looking for the sunrise, or rather for a sunrise shot. This is an in camera HDR take over the lagoons along the main road west of the Visitor Center. You can see a corner of the Launch Facility at Kennedy Space Port peaking out behind the trees on the horizon just left of center.
Sony HX400V at 24mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: 1/125th @ ISO 80 @ f3.2. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Dawn Mix
Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR.
Early morning action along Blackpoint Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. We were out for the World Digiscoper Meet competition at the Space Coast Birding Festival. This is pool of mixed waders: Snowy and Great Egrets, Wood Storks, and White Ibis.
In camera HDR. Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Life Armadillo!
Armadillo. Blackpoint Wildlife Drive. Merritt Island NWR, FL
This is my life Armadillo…oh I have seen them dead in the road…but that does not count. This one was very much alive…looking like a cross between a steampunk rabbit and pig…schuttering alongside the exit road from Blackpoint Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island NWR. My first! What a treat. I took photos out the passenger side car window…very awkwardly…but it actually let me park and get out. Still not the photo I wanted…it would bury its head in the grass…but not bad for a first.
Sony HX400V at 252mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 800 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Woodies in Company
This is another shot from the pool of mixed waders I had the privilege of observing at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge last week. As I mentioned in a few posts, I lost a good deal of my respect for Wood Storks on my visit to Gatorland in Orlando. At Gatorland the Storks have turned into the kind of panhandlers that make you uncomfortable on the streets of a major city. They walk right up on the boardwalks with the tourists, and are aggressive in their attempts to cage a handout. Out on Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, in their natural habitat, surrounded by the other birds of the marsh, they are much more attractive…if the word attractive can in any way be applied to such a magnificently ugly bird! It is a case of their being so ugly they are beautiful, if you know what I mean.
Digiscoped with the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. 15-56x Vario eyepiece. Digidapter for ZEISS. Canon SD320HS. ISO 160 @ 1/1000th. 1230mm equivalent field of view. f5 as determined by the camera. Processed in Snapseed and Photo Editor by dev.macgyver on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Momentary Panic
I had the privilege and pleasure of observing and photographing a feeding swarm of big waders just off Blackpoint Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge last week. There were many White Ibis, a few Glossy Ibis, a good number of Roseate Spoonbills, Great and White Egrets, and half a dozen Wood Storks. The Ibis and Snowy Egrets would bunch up right by the road, feeding on some new spawn, for moments at a time, until the pressure got to great and they would all panic, fly up and to the other side of the pool, only to work their way back into the bunch over the next 10 minutes. It happened a dozen times in the hour and a half I watched.
I caught a panic here with the Sony NEX 3NL and the 16-50mm zoom at about 70mm equivalent. ISO 200 @ 1/250th @ f16. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. The image had a very mild HDR treatment. You might remember that I posted a more pulled back view of this pool a few days ago.
I have assembled many of the images from my time at the feeding pool into a slide show. Enjoy.
Feeding Pool, Merrit Island NWR.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s Roseate Spoonbill post, on the final day of the Space Coast Birding Festival, out on Blackpoint Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, the wading birds massed in a small pool right next to the road, feeding with frenzy on some kind of fresh spawn. In this tiny pool, there were large numbers of Roseate Spoonbills, Snowy and Great Egrets, Glossy and White Ibis, as well as a dozen Wood Storks. It was most impressive. The kind of sight that has to bring a smile at the least, and, for most of us, a giddy grin. 🙂
You can see numbers of all the species mentioned in this moderate telephoto shot of one corner of the pool. It is perhaps more effective in conveying the experience than a full wide angle shot…or than the panoramas I also managed at the pool.
Canon SX50HS. Program with -1/3rd EV exposure compensation and iContrast. 160mm equivalent field of view. ISO 100 @ 1/1000th @ f5.6. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Spoonbill Calling
Among the great birds in Sunday’s feeding frenzy at Merritt Island NWR, there were many Spoonbills. They were the first I had seen on this trip close enough to really enjoy and photograph. They are, in Florida, just coming into full breeding plumage, and this year they are particularly pink! This bird took time out from feeding to assert his ownership of the pool 🙂
Digiscoped with the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL and the Canon SD320HS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece, using the Digidapter for ZEISS. ISO125 @ 1/640th @ f5.6 (determined by the camera). 1428mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. Additional color adjustment in Photo Editor by dev.macgyver.
Sitting Pretty
Bird-life at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge seems to be somewhat sparce this year…but there are still lots of Tricolored and Little Blue Herons. The area around the restrooms, half way around Black Point Wildlife Drive, is a good place to look for the Tricoloreds perched up…and when the light is right you can get some wonderful shots. This is early morning light, and it is around the corner on the way out of the Refuge, so the light was coming over my shoulder as I set up the digiscoping rig. I was photographing a Tricolored in the Mangrove in the small pond there by the turn, when this one flew in to the top of another Mangrove up on the dike. Perfect placement. Great light! I just swung the scope around, refocused, and took a whole series at different zoom setting for framing from full body to intimate portrait.
Canon SD320HS behind the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL using the Digidapter for ZEISS mount. Approximately 2000mm equivalent field of view. ISO 160 @ 1/160th @ an effective f5.8 based on the scope. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. (For those unfamiliar with the technique, digiscoping is taking a photo through the eyepiece of a spotting scope with a digital camera…high magnifications are possible, so you can fill the frame with a bird from much greater distances than you could using conventional photographic lenses.)
Pileated Woodpecker !
My colleague and friend, Rich, is learning to be a better digiscoper this week while we work the Space Coast Birding Festival. We went out to Merritt Island NWR yesterday while waiting for the exhibit hall to open and stopped, on a whim, at the Hammock trails. I didn’t have much hope of seeing many birds, but I wanted to get out of the car and walk. We did catch fleeting glimpses of a Pileated Woodpecker, always a treat as they tend to be shy birds. We have them in Maine, a few, but the only ones I have ever been able to photograph have been in Florida. After our encounter, I was telling Rich how difficult they are to photograph in general, and especially how hard to digiscope. “They just do not sit still long enough. You never get a good shot of them.”
Of course, about then we walked up to two other hikers who pointed out a Pileated working some dead trees about 100 feet back into the forest from the trail. They had been watching it long enough, so they passed it on to us. And of course, it made a liar out of me. It worked a small section of tree trunks for 20 minutes as we watched and photographed. Rich even got the scope on it and got some digiscoped shots. It was in fairly dense cover, so the shots are not great…but, hey, it is a Pileated Woodpecker!
These shots are with the Canon SX50HS, and as you can see, they preset a tricky auto focus problem, which the Canon handled very well. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Which just goes to show you: never say never.
Great Blue Heron in the Shade!
Steve Creek, a fellow nature and wildlife photographer from Arkansas, is running a series of posts on his blog (Steve Creek Outdoors) about why the Great Blue Heron is his favorite bird to photograph. He is up to part 4 today! I am enjoying the posts, since basically, I have the same relationship with Great Blues. 
This Great Blue is at Merritt Island National Wildlife Drive, and seems to have inhabited the pond by the rest stop on Blackpoint Wildlife Drive this year. It was there every time I stopped by over the course of the week I was in Florida. I like this view, both because of its unusual closeness, and because of the effect of the dappled light under the mangrove. The ripples in the water, providing an attractive ground for the image are just a bonus. And yes, he does appear to be eating a seed of some sort? And finally, check out those breeding plumes on the back of this bird’s head!
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill (which just managed to hold detail in both highlight and shadow in this challenging light). –1/3EV exposure compensation. 924mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.