I just got back from an interesting trip to Sanibel and Ding Darling NWR. I had been hoping to get a couple of decent sunsets, I even borrowed some grand ND filters to have better control over the lighting as the sun was setting. Anyway, if you don’t follow my twitter feed, the entire time I was there the island was socked in with sea fog, except for a couple of brief clear times. The total lack of a decent sunset was definitely disappointing.

Anyway, Ding was pretty quiet, though crowded compared to the last time I was there in December. The highlight of that excursion was when a Bald Eagle showed up, though it was to far away to really warrant shooting. I’m not convinced that Ding is really practical for shooting, there haven’t been great numbers of birds when I’ve been there, nor are they close enough to be practical to shoot without some seriously long glass. All in all I find shooting shorebirds on the beach to be much more productive and enjoyable.

Taking a Break

All in all I didn’t shoot a whole lot, but I’m still slowly working though the images, and mostly trying to ID shorebirds as that is still a big weakness for me. Anyway more to come.

I was at the southern end of the Everglades (Flamingo, FL) yesterday, so here’s the wildlife update from the trip. There were Roseate Spoonbills in Eco Pond, a handful at least. As well as White Ibis, and a couple of Great Blue Herons.

The Osprey population at Flamingo seems pretty healthy, there are several nests that can be easily photographed from along the side of the road with a sufficiently long lens (600mm + 1.4 TC at least). The light was not that great all day and nothing seemed to want to fly near me. The one flyby I got was late in great light quality wise, just not enough of it to get the shutter speeds necessary to make it anything more than a blur.

I ran into what I think was a female Northern Harrier (no picture) and what I know was a female American Kestrel (my first, but alas no picture worth sharing). There also seems to be some Eastern Phoebes around Flamingo, you can get quite close so long as you can shoot from your car. They weren’t approachable at all on foot, at least not for me.

I just got back from both the Northeast corner of the everglades (via airboat launched from Everglades Holiday Park in Broward county) and Green Cay, and there’s not a whole lot going on out there. Water levels in the ‘glades are still pretty high, though I forgot to look at the reading on one of the water quality stations we ran by. As for birds, I saw a couple of Great Blues, a couple American Bitterns (at least I think they were, they were too big to be Leasts), some vultures, Anhinga Cormorants and a couple Osprey. On our way in, we ran into a couple of duck hunters, as I understand it this is the last weekend of the season, and they said they hadn’t had any luck either. So things are still very quite right now.

When I got out of there I headed back up to Green Cay again (I was there Friday as well) to shoot Blue-grey Gnatcatchers again. I had some success Friday and a little today, though not for lack of birds being out. The usual suspects appeared to be around, I was there to shoot Gnatcatchers not general birds, Blue-wing Teals, Mottled Ducks, a Hawk (I think it was a Red-shoulder), the usual assortment of Grebes, Loons, Coots, Moorhens, herons and egrets as also there. Not very busy again.

Friday I ran by Wakodahatchee while I was up that way. Pretty quite up there as well. The Herons are still incubating at their nests. Not a whole lot else.

All in all so far this is starting to look like a rather disappointing season, at least unless it doesn’t pick up. The water levels in the Everglades are still a bit higher than the normally would be this time of year.

This isn’t turning out to be all that great of a bird season. I hit three sites today, Loxahatchee National Widlife Refuge and Green Cay Wetlands in Palm Beach county and Long Key Nature Center in broward county.

Boots were on the ground, both literaly and figuratively, at Loxahatchee just after 0700. And there wasn’t an awful lot going on. Like usual herons and egrets were seen around (I saw Great  Blue and Tri-colored herons, and Great Egrets at least), so were Gloss and White Ibisises. There was a Cardinal in another stand of pines, but it was far to distant to make any serious attempts at photographing it. A friend of mine who was also there found a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers on her way in. There were also some raptors around, at least 3 Red-Shouldered Hawks and I saw what I believe to be a Snail Kite, though that was only a flyby and I’m not 100% sure I identified it correctly.

Green Cay was the backup site for the morning, and I’m finding it to be increasingly important to have a backup site given the lack of birds this year. Boots were on the ground there around 0830-0900. Unfortunately Green Cay didn’t do all that much better than Loxahatchee. The usual suspects herons, egrets, moore hens, cormorents, woodstorks,  etc., were  around. My friend spotted a Cardinal by the entrance. There was a Red-shouldered Hawk perched very close to the walkway where it turns in the northwest corner (just after the little island). There really wasn’t a whole lot going on other wise, I spoke with a  woman who had seen some Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, on the large island in the northeast corner, though we couldn’t find them when we went to look. We ran into a really nice Little Blue Heron on the way out, that was very approachable.

What I didn’t see any sign of was the male Northern Harrier which I’ve seen the past two times I’ve been there. I have no idea if it has moved on, or was just down or in a tree somewhere that we weren’t.

While this isn’t necessarily helpful, there was a Wood Stork feeding by the boardwalk to the left (west) of the entrance that was having particularly good luck–hitting something like 8 or 10 fish in less than 10 minutes. I found this interesting, I’ve never really seen the Wood Stork hunting behavior; basically they try and kick the fish into their mouth.

Long Key nature center isn’t exactly my favorite location, it has never panned out well but I was reminded by a woman I spoke with, that there is a fairly decent rookery there, so on the way back I decided to check it out. Alas, nothing, there was an Anhinga and a Great Egret and that was all I could see, there was absolutely nothing in the rookery. Of course, I’m not sure that it wasn’t too early in the season though for that site. I’m going to check back there in the next month or so.

I also spoke to a gentleman who had been over at Wakodahatchee to check on the nesting Great Blue Herons, he said they were on/in the nest and weren’t doing much. I’m going to take that as a pretty good sign that there are eggs, and in about 3 weeks there should be chicks hatching.

Given the situation with birds at these sites and this season in general, I’m going to start wandering a bit more over the next month or so.

Wakodahatchee is still pretty quiet, there are two pairs of Great Blue Herons that have built nests on the the island next to the first gazebo, one is on the west side of the island in the low trees, the other is high in the dead tree on the east side of the island. I believe both nests have settled down for the 28 day incubation period, so chicks something to look forward to in about 4 weeks. Both nests are very accessible for photography with medium telephoto lenses, 300mm on a 1.5-1.6 crop body.

Green Cay has gotten a little more interisting, there is a male Northern Harrier that is active there, I’ve seem him both times I’ve been there durring the mid to late morning. There is also confirmed reports of a female Bobcat and kittens; though to hope to catch a glimps of it, you apparently have to get there very early before people are out and about. Also I’ve been told of Snail Kites hunting in the area, though I haven’t seen any so I can’t confirm those.

Remember images for the letters A and B are due tomorrow night at midnight.

Well it’s getting to be the hottest part of the summer, and that means it’s time for the big trips to the middle of now where to come grinding to a hault. In the mean time, I have an individual project to keep us all on our game.

The project

The assignment is simple, photograph something starting with every letter in the alphabet, but other wise is open ended so go wild.

There are a couple of rules:

1) You have to be able to justify your shot. That it’s not obvious how it relates to the letter you’re showing it for you need to be able to explain that.

2) The images must be new, shot since the start of the event (today, Thursday July 31, 2008), so no reusing old images.

When it’s due. The first 2 images will be due at the end of the week, 11:59 PM (23:59:59) Saturday August 2, 2008. The next 7 will be due the following Saturday, and so on until the alphabet is done.

I’ll post reminders as things go along.

So get shooting people!

Edit: Added some clarifications.