As any wildlife photographer knows timing is everything and
sometimes Mother Nature’s timing does not sometimes coincide with us photographers. One can have high hopes of timing a visit
just right in order to see baby Burrowing Owls as they just emerge from the
nest. When I was down last year, they
emerged around the last week of April.
This May however, it seemed to happen much sooner as the ones that I saw
mostly had lost all their fluff but was still cool to see none the less.
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Baby Burrowing Owl
Cape Coral |
Much of the trip this time around was to catch all the
shorebirds in their glorious breeding plumage along the west coast of
Florida. My wife and I stayed in Sanibel
Island at our favorite cottage, the Blue Dolphin Inn. Little did I know I would find some of the
shorebirds that I sought out on the beach in front of the Inn and residential
area.
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Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Sanibel Island |
We arrived early in the morning to Estero Lagoon which was
my first visit to this location. I timed
our visit to coincide with low tide to maximize my shooting opportunity for
shorebirds. I find it is best to time
these visits, when possible with low tides as many of the shooting areas along
the coast are very tide dependent. Also,
some areas have been really impacted by tropical storms that have reshaped the
beach. So at normal/high tide there
isn’t that much beach left exposed. We
arriving to Estero Lagoon and found the area to most void of wildlife activity
which was surprising. A couple Ospreys’
were spotted as well as a Black Bellied Plover and a couple other little
shorebirds but that was about it. I was
later told that I did not go far enough south (10 minute walk from where we
parked), though I did not see any other photographers on the beach that
morning.
Switching gears, my wife suggested we head over to my
reliable spot that was north of Estero Lagoon, Bunche Beach State
Preserve. My previous visit to this
location was last year in December and I really liked it. One thing that I noticed about Estero Lagoon
is it was more populated with beach goers then Bunche Beach is, even though
both are public beaches. I believe the
big difference is that at Estero the beach is lined with hotels as well as
vacation condos. Bunche Beach on the
other hand is set up off to the side of the main population and each time I
visit there I find that I am largely by myself in a vast open area that is
exposed during low tide. At often times,
it can be found to be overwhelming having such a large area to explore and seek
out birds. I found it is best to arrive
an hour or so before low tide so you can push out towards the ocean as the tide
retreats from the beach. In any case, I
made three visits to Bunche Beach all during the morning and enjoyed the peace
and solitude of the area, only being joined by a couple other
birders/photographers and my wife on two of the mornings. I
enjoyed great views of Wilson Plovers, Black-bellied Plovers, Skimmers, Caspian
Terns, Ruddy Turnstones as well as others.
Most of the shorebirds were in breeding plumage which made me very happy
to see. I know one thing that was happy
to see me, the no-seums, sandflies, and whatever else enjoyed dinning on my
legs. Remember playing connect the dots
when you were younger? Yeah, you could
probably play multiple games out of the hundreds of red dots I have all over my
legs from those guys. Such the life of a
nature photographer I suppose.
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Black Skimmer
Bunche Beach Preserve |
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Ruddy Turnstone
Bunche Beach Preserve |
Another place that was visited a couple times was “Ding”
Darling Wildlife Refuge, a place that I have had great luck in past
visits. This time not so much
though. I have often heard from
various people that they have visited this location and not had any luck. Up until this visit I never believed
them. I haven’t seen the place so empty
in all my visits. Another location that
is closely connected to the refuge is Bailey’s Tract. This place consists of a walking trail (not
really sure of the length). During this
visit we discovered multiple Black-necked Stilt nests. Now of course when we were there for some
reason I left my big glass back at the cottage we were staying at and only had
my 70-200mm. So after we saw all the
Stilts I was kicking myself for not throwing my backpack in the car. Luckily the cottage was a short drive from
where we were so I high tailed it back there and picked up my long glass and
raced back hoping they would still be in the same area, and they were. I was able to get some shots of these guys
and even a couple portrait shots as well which is something I have always been
a big fan of. In any event, this
location is worth revisiting next time.
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Black-necked Stilt
Bailey Tract |
One of the photographers that I met up with this trip, Bob
Blanchard showed me a great spot for Scrub Jays in Cape Coral. This was the first time I have seen a Scrub
Jay in all my visits to Florida amazingly.
One would think that with all my visits down here I would have run into
them by now. These birds were so tame that
they landed on my head as well as my wife’s head. It really was a sight to see. I was amazed at the size of them, being
roughly the size of a Blue Jay. I really hope we can do a better job at
protecting these guys habitat so this does not become another endangered
species. According to what I read, they
currently have a “threatened” status.
Bob was recommended to me from Troy Lim whom I had talked to. I had hoped to meet both that day but was
only able to hook up with Bob, had a great time though.
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Florida Scrub Jay
Cape Coral |
Having only a short
time in Sanibel I did not have time to explore and find the Scrub Jays as well
as the Burrowing Owl babies (which I saw later). Typically, I pride myself on doing my own
research and exploring new areas on my own.
To me, it makes the final capture that much more rewarding. The second place Bob and I shot at was in
southern Cape Coral, the baby Burrowing Owls.
The nest that we worked had some of the younger owls. Though, these ones were still fairly old as
they had lost all their baby fluff much to my demise. Still, I felt very fortunate to see and
photograph these little guys as my last trip I had missed seeing them by one
week. What is ironic is that I ended up
getting more photos of the adults then the babies, simply being because they
were spending a lot of time in the burrows.
It seems like every
time I am out with these owls I have an encounter with those lovely Florida
fire ants. Much like last time, I did
this time as well, looking down on the ground seeing that I had just disturbed
an angry fire ant mound. Mental note for
next time to pick up those ant pant guards that go around your ankles to keep
those critters from crawling up my legs.
Another location that Bob and I visited is a great location
for Black-necked Stilts, nicknamed by him as “Bobs’ Mudhole” and rightfully so,
the area consists of a large marsh type pond that one can wade through if so
desired. Of course I was up to getting a
little dirty as always! The water level
was a bit to high still for the Stilts to nest and I was told that if the water
level remains high or increases that the Stilts would not nest there this
year. The water, at most, was around
knee deep and occasionally I got stuck in the thickest mud I have ever been
in. The mud, at those times seemed to
resemble quick sand as it suctioned you to the marsh below and quite a bit of
effort was required to remove ones footing from the bottom. In an event, I did come away with some decent
opportunities there with the Stilts, Spoonbills, and some juvenile American Pelicans
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Roseate Spoonbill
Fort Myers |
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American White Pelican
Fort Myers |
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Black-necked Stilt
Fort Myers |
I found that the
Pelicans seemed to mimic the Black Skimmers I encountered at Bunche Beach in
that they seemed to always want to stay huddled closely together and a lot of
effort was required to get a shot of one broken off of the group. Safety in numbers I suppose. Unfortunately my visit to this location had
less than stellar light most of the time as we had some heavy cloud cover to
the west.
After heading back to Ocala I paid one of two visits to Flagler
Beach where I met up with Michael Libbe whom I have conversed with several
times and follow his work on several photo sharing sites. He offered to show me around the area and
provided me with some great entertainment, he was a great shooting companion as
was Bob. When I awoke early Sunday
morning and was packing my car up there was a large cumulous cloud looming not
too far away with very frequent lighting coming from it. Taking a look at the radar on my smartphone before
I left I saw that there were storms to the north, east, and south of where I
was going. Dang! Should I go, or shouldn’t I go. It was a two hour drive out to the east coast
from central Florida so certainly I did not want to make that drive only to sit
in my car due to thunderstorms. I called
my friend Michael and he said the weather changes every 30 minutes down here
and that he was still going. So after a
few moments of torturing myself on what to do I decided to head for the
coast. I got there shortly after
sunrise, no thanks to a detour on Hwy 206 that added 10 minutes to my driver,
grrrr… When I arrived, meeting Michael
at Marineland we had a cloud layer on the east coast so as it turns out the
detour I ran into didn’t affect my morning shooting too much. We arrived to Flagler Beach and what a
beautiful beach it is. Having only been
to Daytona Beach many moons ago I was turned off by the eastern beaches from
that. I predetermined that this outing I
was going to try out my Skimmer Pod that I had purchased about a year ago.
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I knew I wouldn’t be
submerged in water here so this was the perfect opportunity to try this
out. It really worked well, making me
even more mobile scooting across the sand compared to pushing my tripod. As we were walking along the Least Tern
colony we saw that some were nesting while others were still courting. We noticed an extremely small roped off area
up ahead and when we approached Michael spotted a Wilson’s Plover running out
of the area. We both said, “there has
got to be a nest in there” and sure enough there was. It took a few minutes to spot it but there is
was a nest cradled in the sand with 2-3 eggs.
We spend some time with this Plover capturing different poses from this
male or female.
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| Wilson's Plover |
That alone, made the trip worthwhile in my opinion having
never seen or photographed a Wilson’s Plover nest that was a mere 10 feet
away. We back tracked down the beach
back towards the Least Tern colony when I spotted a large gather of Terns down
my the ocean. What we had was a large gathering of Royal Terns, Least Terns,
and Sandwhich Terns, my Skimmer Pod came into great use here allowing me to
belly crawl across the sand with much easy which allowed me to approach these
birds very close without startling them.
Photographing the Royal and Sandwhich Terns I found to be an exercise in
frustration as they tend to gather in groups much like the Skimmers do. It was all worth the effort though as we
spent a great deal of time working this gathering of fairly tame Terns.
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| Royal Tern |
Was even able to
capture and witness some Least Tern courtship behavior as well.
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| Least Tern courtship |
Went back to this spot at the end of the week hoping some of
the babies would have hatched but no luck.
When I parked in the “parking lot” another photographer approached me
and asked what my name was, ended up being Jim Urbach who resides in Florida
and is a moderator on Naturescapes, a nature photography forum that I
frequent. Was great to meet him that day
and shoot with him. We went over to the
Wilson’s Plover nest first and had some stellar golden morning light on
it. The Royal Terns that were on the
beach on Sunday were absent this visit, had better luck with the Least Terns
though. I found that it was much easier
to get shots of them on the beach front rather than behind the roped off area,
just a matter of timing and patience I found.
They allowed you approach fairly close when belly crawling to them
across the beach. Just keep in mind to
watch out for the waves breaking behind you and catching you, which one of them
did. Luckily, it broke a little ways out
and just washed up beneath me, but the water felt nice. J
Finished out the photography part of my trip shooting the
two dozen Black-bellied Whistling Ducks that frequent a DRA (Drainage Retention
Area) where my in-laws live.
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| Black-bellied Whistling Duck |
I like to
try and get out there with these guys whenever we are in Ocala visiting my
wife’s parents. Each time I have visited
this spot for these Whistling Ducks it seems I come away with some images I am
really happy with that are a little different, given that that they are walking
around on grass I try not to make them look to boring. So difficult to time a trip up with hatchings as it various
from year to year, guess we will just have to move down to Florida so I will
have better luck then. All in time, all
in time. J
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