March 10, 2019

Even though Mel and I went for a very short walk today in terms of distance (less than a mile), we spent an inordinate amount of time (hours) taking pictures– of butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies and turtles—but not a single bird!! We just didn’t see them!

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The most interesting thing we saw on our walk today was a pair of monarch butterflies down on the ground either killing each other or engaged in ‘coitus’ (as Sheldon on Big Bang would say!). Mel had seen these two butterflies flitting about just moments before he heard a ‘thump’, after which the two butterflies fell to the ground. (So much drama!) The butterfly on the bottom (probably the girl) was not moving, but the one on top (probably the boy) was quite active. When all was said and done, the boy flew off and the girl looked dead. She was flat on the ground stiff as a board. So I slowly approached to take a closer look, and suddenly she popped up and flew away! I must say, I have never seen butterflies mate in quite this fashion before! How fascinating!

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The other interesting activity I observed today was a large eastern pondhawk dragonfly devouring a damselfly! Wait what?? Cannabalistic dragonflies? What next? As it turns out, damselflies in love. I caught several of them in the act—which is not an easy thing to do! Damselflies aren’t much bigger than a large hat pin. They are hard to find even in the best of circumstances (unless you see them moving), but I’ve been trying to capture them using a 600mm telephoto lens and I have back up at least 6 feet just for the camera to achieve focus!! It’s kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack once I put the lens up to my eye and try to re-locate what I had barely seen with my naked eye just moments before.

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All in all an exciting day of sex and cannibalism!

March 8, 2019

Mel and I have been out on so many picture walks since we arrived in Florida that it seems like we should be running out of new and interesting things to photograph. It’s definitely true that we’re finding it harder and harder to get pictures of things that we haven’t already seen– but it’s still possible! Today, for example, I saw two new dragonflies I hadn’t seen before (a Scarlett Skimmer and a Pin-tailed Pondhawk), one new butterfly (Horace’s Dusty Wing) and one new damselfly (Mel’s catch: a Rambur’s Forktail).*

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But, when neither of us can find something new, we look for ways to take pleasing or interesting pictures of the things we are already familiar with—like the ospreys, green herons, egrets, cormorants, moorhens–and honeybees! Mel and I both enjoy the challenge of seeing whether we can be successful in finding the right settings for the subject at hand– and then holding the camera steady enough to get a sharp picture! It feels like such an accomplishment when we do get it right!

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There are so many things I’ve learned along the way just by trial and error—like anticipating my shots. I didn’t used to do that.  If I’m walking into a shady area, I change my settings and then take a few practice shots so that I’m ready if a bird should flutter into view. Conversely, I change the settings again if I walk into sunlight.  I’ve also learned that I need to keep checking the settings on my long lens –making sure that none of the controls have moved accidentally. Too many times I’ve come home gravely disappointed because the ‘sliders’ for Focal Length or Optical Stabilization have moved out of place and the pictures I thought might have been good, are really blurry.

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Of all my little reminders and rituals though, “Shoot the way your shadow goes!” is my favorite. I made it up as an easy and alliterative reminder to make sure that the sun is behind me and my shadow is in front of me for the best possible pictures.

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*I identify the birds and bugs we find as best I can using the resources I have available, but if you see any errors, please let me know.

March 7, 2019

Sometimes, when Mel and I go out for a walk, we have to decide whether it will be a ‘regular walk’ or a ‘picture  walk’;  whether to take our cameras or leave them at home. Taking them means that there will probably be hours and hours worth of sorting, cropping and editing pictures later.  Plus, the walk will be very slow and not exactly aerobic! But, not taking them means that we’ll miss out on examining all the interesting details of the things we find and joy of sharing what we find with others. So, we took them with us today on our long out of town trek to Ollie’s Pond in Port Charlotte, and the Venice Rookery in Venice.

To get to Port Charlotte, we battled 85 miles of glacially slow traffic. We went there mostly to check out our rental place for next year, but Ollie’s Pond is close by and is a place that Mel and I loved visiting last year. We hoped to at least find a great horned owl and her babies like we did last year. 

Not long into our walk around the pond, that’s exactly what happened! Mel spotted a very large great horned owl high up in one of the trees near where we had seen one before! Unfortunately, though, we never found any babies.

From Port Charlotte, we drove to Englewood to track down a friend from Michigan who was running a new seafood business (Twin Lobsters), then on to visit the Venice Rookery–a favorite place of ours from our winter in Florida last year.

“A rookery is a colony of breeding animals, generally birds. Rooks – northern-European and central-Asian members of the crow family – nest in prominent colonies at the tops of trees. The word applies to the nesting place of birds, such as crows and rooks, the source of the term.”

The rookery in Venice is a small island in a small pond that’s teeming with great blue herons, egrets, cormorants, anhingas and all their noisy babies. The island is a beehive of activity with adult birds flying in and out bringing in nesting materials or food, cormorants, and anhingas swimming in the pond below looking for fish, and baby birds squawking to be fed (also the occasional alligator swimming below hoping one of the babies will fall in!) Needless to say, the rookery is very popular with birders and photographers alike, as well as casual observers who just come to walk around the pond or sit and watch from the nearby shelter.

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We didn’t get to stay at either Ollie’s Pond or the Rookery as long as we would have liked because it was a long drive home and the dogs would be waiting…

March 6, 2019

Today’s photo adventure/picture walk took Mel and I to the nearby Boyd Hill Nature Preserve.

Boyd Hill Nature Preserve is a 245-acre protected area located on the shores of Lake Maggiore in south St. Petersburg, Florida. It includes the Boyd Hill Environmental Center, a bird of prey aviary, and more than three miles of trails through a variety of ecosystems.

We have been to Boyd Hill Preserve once before, but it was over a month ago, so we were hoping maybe there  would be something new to see today. Even if we didn’t find anything to photograph, it would still be a lovely place for  an afternoon walk— but pictures would make the walk infinitely more fun. We tend to be much more observant when there’s the possibility of  finding something interesting or something beautiful to photograph–and we did.

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The most interesting thing we found today was a ginormous alligator laying across a path that we had hoped to negotiate and its mouth was wide open. Should we take a picture or quietly retreat? The alligator appeared to be frozen in place. His eyes were open, his mouth was open, but he never moved. So, we took his picture. Multiple times. Mel even knelt down on the ground to get a better shot! The alligator never budged!

The other interesting thing we found today was a juvenile bald eagle– high up in one of the trees. He was a bit difficult to photograph, though. Not only was he extremely high up in the tree, he was backlit and he blended in with the bark! But it was worth giving it a try given how seldom we even see bald eagles. Mel’s shot turned out the best.

The most beautiful things we saw today were the butterflies! Much like the botanical gardens we had visited the other day, the butterflies were flitting about  everywhere. At the gardens, it was mostly monarchs and swallowtails. Today, at Boyd Hill, it was mostly Zebra Longwings (the state butterfly of Florida) and Gulf Fritillaries. They are both quite beautiful! We took dozens of pictures trying to capture them as they landed in quick succession on one flower after another.

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I was quite happy with what we were able to find today!

March 5, 2019

Yesterday evening Mel and I decided to drive a few miles down the road to Coffee Pot Park for a walk along the Coffee Pot bayou and then along Tampa Bay. Even though it wasn’t really going to be a ‘picture  walk’, I took my camera along anyway—just in case. 

There were just tons of different birds along the waterfront — but if Mel hadn’t had his binoculars, and I hadn’t had my camera with the long lens, it would have been impossible for us to discriminate all the different shapes that were out there! Even with our assistive  devices in hand, we had no idea what many of the birds were.  I was eager to know what we were seeing, so I took an excessive number of pictures—hoping I could identify them later.

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Even with my handy bird app and my giant bird book and Google, I still had trouble identifying some of them! There are just so many birds that look similar, and many birds that look entirely different when they are adults from when they are juveniles!

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After many hours of sorting through my pictures and consulting with my resources, I’ve determined that we saw all of the following birds: brown pelicans, laughing gulls, sanderlings, dunlins, short billed dowitchers, black bellied plovers, black skimmers, great blue herons, reddish egret (maybe), roseate spoonbills, willets, marbled godwits and  semipalmated plovers. If I have misidentified any of these birds, I certainly welcome corrections!

March 4, 2019

On Saturday, Mel  and I both went out in search of butterflies. On Sunday, I went  out alone in search of pelicans. In both cases, I found much more than I had hoped for.

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Saturday’s hunt took us both to the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo, Florida.  We had last visited about a month ago and now wanted to see what was currently in bloom and what new butterflies had arrived.  

The butterfly garden was teeming —mostly with Monarchs and Spicebush Swallowtails, but other varieties as well. There were so many butterflies fluttering about that, for someone like me, with “ADND”, Attention Deficit Nature Disorder’, it was hard to keep my head from spinning off its axis. I am so easily distracted by things moving in my periphery that it took a herculean effort to concentrate on the butterfly in front of me!

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After the botanical gardens, we drove another few miles down the road to explore Eagle Lake Park which has a 2,000 foot boardwalk over some restored wetlands and a 12 ft wide recreation trail coursing through the park. We were particularly interested in the wetlands for picture opportunities, but were pleasantly surprised to find butterflies along the trail.

Happily, I wasn’t on the boardwalk more than a few minutes before I got my very best shot of the day—a brilliant Eastern Amberwing dragonfly perched on a limb in the shady water below me with just the right amount of sunshine highlighting its wings.

On Sunday, I went out on my own in search of pelicans by walking a mile or so downtown to Coffee Pot Park, which is situated along a bayou that leads out to Tampa Bay.  Not far into the bayou is a large rookery, or bird preserve. Unfortunately, it’s an island and the only way to get close-ups of the birds would be to rent a canoe or a kayak.

For this excursion, at least, I’d have to be content with taking pictures from the shoreline. Mostly, I wanted to capture shots of pelicans flying, but any bird that wanted to stop by would have been welcome to do so. A few actually did.

After the bayou, I wanted to see if there were still  any pelicans hanging out back at Crescent Lake–and I wanted to see how ‘my’ seven duck eggs were doing. But since I was still traveling on foot, it would  take me awhile to get there.

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Once I arrived at Crescent Lake, the  pelicans were easy to spot and so were many of the other ‘regulars’—like the great blue heron, the crested mallard, the cormorants and the limpkins. Sadly though, ‘my’ seven little eggs were all missing!! Kidnapped, I suspect. The nest was completely cleared but with no forensic evidence to identify who the culprit was. The lack of egg shell remains or guts made me think that the eggs had probably been taken by a person rather than an animal. But why? I was really disappointed and saddened to find them gone; I had really hoped to watch my little  ducks grow up. 

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On another note altogether, by the time I got home late in the day, my walking app said that I had chalked up over eleven miles or 27,515 steps—three miles for errands, eight for pictures! Surprisingly though, the calories it said I had burned along the way didn’t even cover the giant bowl of ice cream I gobbled down when I got home!