These are a few frames of one of Florida’s Crested Caracaras from my time at Viera Wetlands in early December. This individual photographed while feeding on a fish found on the side of the levee.
The Crested Carcara is a ground-inhabiting bird of prey that is closely related to Falcons. It’s found primarily in open habitats like grasslands, scrub deserts and seashores.
The Florida population has been isolated from the rest of the Caracara range (most of South and Central America) since the end of the last ice age. In Florida its range extends throughout Okeechobee, Osceola, Highlands, Glades, Polk, Indian River, St. Lucie, Hardee, DeSoto, Bervard, Collier and Martain counties.
Caracaras, like other raptors, are opportunistic and will eat carrion, steal food from other birds, and hunt for small most other small prey items. However, unlike vultures, Caracaras will almost always avoid rotting carrion. The individual photographed here had managed to find an fairly fresh fish (or possibly run off another bird for it’s fish) on the side of one of the trails embankments.
Crested Caracara populations have been declining due to loss of habitat due to development for some time. The Audubon’s Crested Caracara is listed on the U.S. Endangered Species List and the Florida populations considered a threatened. The Florida populations face uncertain futures since the majority of the land in it’s range is privately owned, and thus not under Federal protection.
That little excursion around south and central Florida a week back that took me to Sanibel also brought me to Walt Disney World and the many attractions there. I’m not as much of a fan of Disney as I was when I was a kit but I do appreciate the incredible level of detail they put into making you feel like you were somewhere else. Details like rundown power lines and even non-functional electrical meters on the building in Animal Kingdom’s Africa and Asia areas really helps complete the suspension of reality.
Animal Kingdom isn’t one of my favorite parks attraction wise–thought the Kilimanjaro Safari is absolutely fabulous and one of my all time favorite Disney rides–it is, however, full of exotic looking buildings and architecture and well though out detailing which makes it quite interesting photographically.
On little more than a lark and with some luck I decided to head up to Cape Canaveral for the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-129. Fortunately the weather cooperated and the launch was a success.
Shuttle Atlantis moments after leaving the pad on STS-129.
I have a whole new level of respect for the people who flew in these things–B-17 Flying Fortresses–in World War II. They are cramped, hot, there’s not a whole lot of room to move around, and with 13- .50 cal machine guns firing over the sound of the engines it would have been very loud. In fact, when they fired up the engines alone it was a very impressive. This time we have some shots from inside the Liberty Belle.
Hot inside, would be an understatement; by the time I got a chance to crawl around in it, the plane had been sitting on the tarmac under the glorious South Florida sun for something like 4 hours. It was probably close to 120 degrees, or more, inside the plane and there is very little in the way of ventilation. At least they had the bomb bay open and a perspex panel from the roof removed. Not that it helped very much.
It war time, it was probably only marginally better in the air until they got to cruise level, at which point it would be very cold.
I can also say I very much wouldn’t want to be in one of these things when they started shooting at you. There’s very little room to move, though it’s hard to tell from the photographs since they were shot at 10mm. Getting to the nose from the tail door involved crawling over a 1 foot wide catwalk in the bomb bay then though a small crawl space under the cockpit. Even then, once you’d reached the nose getting to the bombardier’s stool at the bomb site was nothing short of gymnastics, for me at least. To get to the tail gun required crawling though the smallest part of the fuselage around the tail gear. The belly turret was claustrophobia inducing just looking at, I can’t imagine what it would have been like sitting in one with your knees by your ears, for 8 hours.
Cramped, hot and yet so awesome.
Photo of me in the bombardier’s seat, courtesy of Bill Cantrell, used with permission.
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to photograph the Liberty Belle, one of the 15 remaining Boeing B-17 bombers that is still flying, when it visited Fort Lauderdale’s Executive Airport this last weekend. Awesome, would be a good way to describe it.
A bit of history; On September 9, 1944 the 390th Bomb Group sent 12 aircraft to take part in a bombing raid on Dusseldorf, Germany. Over the target, one plane was hit in the bomb bay by flack, detonating the 1000 pound bombs it was carrying and destroying or knocking out of formation 9 of the 12 aircraft in the squadron. Six of those went down over the target, 2 flew on a single engine and landed in Paris, one made it to Belgium. The lone damaged plane to make it back to its home base was the Liberty Belle. After that raid, the Liberty Belle went on to complete 64 more combat missions before being salvaged.
