A Break from the Rain

Florida Birding

The heavy rain has finally let up, so now we are just getting our typical Florida summertime afternoon showers. This gave me the opportunity to go out shooting again, and I enjoyed spending the morning at my favorite venue. But it is really getting hot - the temperature topped out just over 90-degrees F yesterday, and it is expected to get worse. You can tell summer is on its way, although it has not officially arrived.
Below are some photos from my latest outing, including a few headshots and a great egret flight sequence.

[click on any image to enlarge]
6791c - Snowy Egret
This snowy egret photo is probably my favorite shot of the day. It was made with my backup camera, a Canon 40d with 300mm f2.8 lens and 2x extender (600mm). I've heard people say for a long time that the 2x extender degrades picture quality too much to be of use. I used to think that was true, but I realized last year that my camera focus was out of calibration, and once that was corrected, I began to get nice images, even with the 2x. I might add that to get good results with an extender, you should attach it to a good quality lens.

The tricolor heron below is a young bird, as you can tell by the coloration and the head feathers.
66424 - Tricolor Heron
There were a good number of roseatte spoonbills (15 to 20), but they were roosting in the trees and seldom flying around. Every so often a few of them would get restless and fly off to a different perch. I was not able to get many good flight photos of them because I either was not close enough or the light was at a bad angle. Here is one shot I managed to get, although pretty heavily cropped.

66577c - Roseatte Spoonbill

66606 - Snowy Egret

Snowy egrets were flying around jousting for space in several trees, and I captured this image when one of them held still for a few seconds. Most of the time, the snowy egrets did not stay put for very long, except for the ones sitting on eggs.

66651c - Tricolor Heron

I do not have many tricolor heron flight shots, so if I get an opportunity I always try to capture a better one. I snapped several photos as this one flew past, and
this was my favorite one.
Below is a flight sequence of a great egret flying to the nest with a stick. I watched as the bird tore the branch from a tree, and then prepared to fly back to the nest. I like the first and last shots the best. It's interesting to watch as the bird springs off the tree and spreads its wings to take off.

#66627 - 66631 Great Egret flight sequence

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A Half-Day of Florida Birding

6185 - Great Egret in flight
Today I got out for the first time this season to do some birding, thanks to a friend visiting from Atlanta who was looking for some shooting company. We met at the rookery behind the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine, Florida. I was only shooting from 8am till noon, but it ended up being a surprisingly fruitful day. I was sort of bummed because I had to send my main camera in for service, so I was left to shoot with my backup rig, which is a 40d. This camera is slower to acquire focus than my Mk2N, but I was a little surprised at how capable it was once I got used to it. I didn't think about it until I was on my way home, but I actually could have photographed 7 different species of herons and egrets alone, if I had bothered to get at least one image of every kind I saw. In addition to herons and egrets, I also saw roseatte spoonbills and Wood Storks. Aside from opportunities to photograph adult birds, there were also chicks of several species and also some juvies. This post will be long on photos and short on text.

6063 - Great Egret chicks

There were plenty of opportunities for Great egrets, including many nests with chicks. I have never gotten what I consider a really good shot of chicks, and I after today I can still say that. But I did get a few shots that at least show the chicks pretty well. Note that in the photo above, the mother has already lost the bright green lore that you usually see as the birds get into breeding season. In the photo below, you can see another of the same species in full breeding colors. I would guess this one is about at peak color.

6014 - Great Egret breeding colors

I'm not normally a fan of white sky backgrounds, and most of my photos with white backgrounds end up in the recycle bin. But the one below works for me and I like it. It's probably the first time I've posted a photo of a white bird with a white background. I was fortunate in my timing to capture the egret with a nice full wing spread.

6161 - Great Egret with nesting material

I was hoping to get a good shot of a cattle egret, and while I saw a few with good color, all were in nests that were obstructed by too many sticks for a decent photo. I'm posting one anyway, just to show the breeding colors. When the colors are at peak, the lore is a purple and looks pretty cool.

6114 - Cattle Egret

I saw a few snowy egrets, but none in good breeding colors. Here is an example of what I am talking about. These birds look a lot prettier when the lore is bright red.

6104 - Snowy Egret

This tricolor heron hung around for a while so I waited until I could get an unobstructed shot. There was a piece of a branch in the upper right corner of the frame that I cloned out.

6026 - Tricolor Heron

Below is a headshot of another tricolor heron that had a little nicer color. This bird was facing away from me at first, but I liked the background so I waited a long time until it turned its head to give me this shot.

6132 - Tricolor Heron headshot

I saw lots of wood storks in nests with chicks, but most of them were too high up in trees to get a good shot. I waited for a long time before this chick stood up and faced me. There were two chicks in this nest but they never got up at the same time while I was watching.

6271 - Wood stork with chick

As I was about to leave, I noticed a great blue heron standing on a tree limb above the swamp. It did not give me the head turn I hoped for, but I snapped this photo anyway.

6275 - Great Blue Heron

This ended up being a very productive day compared to most outings, and I felt like I got at least a half-dozen keepers. This was partly due to the overcast conditions, which kept the light pretty soft for a good part of the morning, well past the time when the bright sunlight would normally be spoiling most opportunities for decent photos. In addition to what is shown here, I saw roseatte spoonbills and a few green herons, but I didn't have an opportunity to get any decent shots of them. Since I spent the morning walking on a boardwalk above a swamp full of alligators, I'll end with a headshot of a gator. I captured this mage because I liked the color of reflections in the water.

6023 - Gator