Today I got a great closeup shot of a great egret with the green coloration that shows up when mature adults are ready to mate. The other day I got a shot of a Great Blue Heron in it’s blue coloration.
Just for comparison, here are two shots of each. The mating coloration on the left and normal on the right.
It’s just one of the interesting things you can learn about birds.
I took an internet friend to a couple of local bird locations to show him what the area was like. We met at the Punta Gorda History Park to take a look at the Great Horned Owls which had taken over the unused eagles nest to raise their own brood. They have produced two chicks who are progressing nicely. But, while we were there, the sun angle was directly behind them making good shots hard to come by. So, we satisfied ourselves with a few shots of the female owl and a Red-breasted Woodpecker who lives in the park.
After that, we went down to Ponce de Leon Park just to show them the location. We did take a few shots of the Great Blue Heron nest there in the parking lot of the Peace River Wildlife Center. It is in an awkward position for photography so, nothing much came of that stop. It is a morning shoot though and should be good tomorrow morning. The last stop was the local rookery where there are always an abundance of birds. At the high point, there is a Great Blue Heron nest with two maturing young. The are nearly as large as their parents and beginning to get ready to fly. In fact, one of the parents seemed to be teaching them to flap their wings.
After a few demonstrations like this the adult departed leaving the young to try it on their own. One of them took the lessons to heart and spent a lot of time flapping it’s wings as if to try to fly. But, today wasn’t the day. As you can see in these pictures, the plumage hasn’t completely filled in and there are enough gaps to stop actual flight. This activity does, however, provide a lot of exercise for the flight muscles as the plumage fills in.
It won’t be long before baby can take flight. There won’t be any shortage of other birds either. In this shot you can see Anhinga, Great Egret and Great Blue Heron nests. There is also a tree full of Cormorant nests.
On Feb 29, I went to a small local rookery to see how the nesting season was going. I was hoping to get shots of nesting activity and baby birds so, the camera was set for slow action. I started scanning over the nest area when I suddenly saw a burst of activity.
Two Common Moorhens (Gallinula chloropus) were running across the water. You couldn’t really call it flying because the feet were moving as fast as their wings. These birds are usually very slow and calm. The most activity I usually see is them clucking to each other as they slowly paddle away from me. It turned out that this was a fight for dominance between two males. I started shooting as fast as I could but, the 1/500th of a second wasn’t fast enough to stop the action. The one in the lead suddenly executed a quick turn to face his attacker with a threat display.
The fight was on, these guys looked like tiny Kung Fu Fighters as they each reared back with kicks to the body and face.
After a few minutes of this though, there was a winner and the loser rolled on his side to show submission. The winner continued to force submission displays as the swam back to the nesting island.
An unexpected action bonus at the rookery.
Today, a neighbor called me to tell me that there were four Yellow-crowned Night Herons standing on their pilings.
That’s pretty unusual, you don’t usually see them in groups. I went over to take a look and sure enough there were four on the pilings, one on a dock across the way and another in a tree. As I watched them, it was obvious that they all had their full attention on the one in the tree. Eventually, I spooked one. It flew directly to the tree and as soon as it departed another followed in a heartbeat.
This looks like courtship behaviour so, it looks like we may end up with a nest in the tree across the canal. I sure hope so.
We have a lot of Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) that are permanent residents in the area. One of the better spots to observe them is Ponce De Leon Park in Punta Gorda but, there are plenty of others around Charlotte Harbor. They like to perch on the pilings of the channel markers. Seeing a big bird like this land on the top of an 8 inch diameter piling puts a helicopter to shame. Here are a couple of shots.
My favorite though is this sequence showing a Pelican chasing a Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus) off of its chosen perch. You will need to click on the images to enlarge them.
Once on the post, they either stand on the post if still hunting or hunker down for a nap. This one was wondering why I was disturbing it.
You can also see the rescued pelicans and other birds at the Peace River Wildlife Center in the park.
This morning, a friend and I headed over to the area around the Fishery Restaurant in Placida. This area has the restaurant and a number of fishing guides and art studios if you would like to visit. Our purpose though was bird photography, specifically Birds In Flight (BIF). It was a successful trip in regard to both birds and flight shots. Our first stop was near the guide boats and I caught this Yellow Crowned Night Heron (Nyctanassa violacea) stalking crabs in the shallows and also a Willet (Tringa semipalmata) taking flight.
There were also a pair of Osprey in the area, one on the nest and the other in a nearby tree on watch. The next had included some orange drift fencing and was pretty unattractive, so I won’t be showing any of those. After a while at the charter pier, we moved over to the public fishing pier on the other side of the fishery restaurant. There we were quite close to the White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) and Ruddy Turnstones (Arenaria interpres). The pelicans stayed in the water but, the turnstones seemed to be quite happy hanging out on the pier looking for dropped bait. I did manage to scare a few into flight before they came back to mooch.
There was even a Great Egret (Ardea alba) which would fly from one end of the pier to the other looking for handouts.
I even had a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) and a Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) pose for portraits. As usual, just click on an image for a larger view.
All in all, a successful morning.
One of our small natural areas is a place called Ollies Pond. It is a nice pond in a residential area which attracts a lot of wading and water birds. I was passing by on my way back from the boatyard when I decided to stop of and see what might be going on. The parking lot wasn’t the best place to be. The sun was coming from the other side of the pond and everything was backlit with harsh sunlight. I did walk a little way with the D90 and 70-300mm VR. I found a nice dragonfly on watch and a Cloudless Sulfur mudding.
The harsh light wasn’t the best for them but it did show off the 70-300mm VR at close focus range. A crop of another shot of the dragonfly shows a lot of detail for a non-macro lens.
While shooting those, the birds became a little more active and I was overflown by a mixed flock of White and Glossy Ibis.
But, that was enough of bad light, I could see that there was some decent activity on the other side of the pond where the light would be better. Since it was just a quick stop, I drove around to a more favorable position. I took the header picture of a Great Blue Heron from that side and then found a little area that was just crammed with a wide variety of waders and water birds. There were Snowy Egrets, Little Blue Herons, White and Glossy Ibis, Tri-color Herons, Hooded Mergansers and a couple of other types of ducks. Here is a set of quick shots from that spot.
Not a bad day at all. Just click the images for a larger view.
As I mentioned in my First Impression of the P7100 post, I am undertaking a project to document the Hibiscus in a local park. One of Americas premier hybridizers of the Hibiscus was Harry Goulding. He registered 479 varieties and created many more. Punta Gorda is proud to claim him and have created the Harry Goulding Memorial Garden at the Punta Gorda History Park. This is one of them from the P7100 post.
It turns out that just finding a perfect hibiscus to photograph can be tough. You need to find them in full bloom and before the winds start damaging them. Here are a couple of ‘close but not quite’ shots of other blooms.
Both of these have some slight damage at the ends of the petals. This usually happens when the breeze rubs the petals with the edges of leaves. These may be the best I get of these particular varieties though and will probably use them unless I get something better.
Remember, this is a documentation project, not fine art so absolute perfection is not required so long as the characteristics of the bloom are captured.
There are almost 100 varieties of hibiscus in the park and all bloom at different times. To complete the project, I need to be able to stop in at almost any time and take a few shots of good examples. The Nikon P7100 is ideal for this. It’s small sensor provides a lot of depth of field and it’s color resolution is near perfect. I don’t need to lug a huge amount of kit. I can keep the camera in the car while running errands and stop in the park to check new blooms as I happen to be passing.
My local rookery has a number of Cormorant nests with plenty of birds about. Unfortunately, I missed breeding plumage which consists of little white crests on their heads. They nest in colonies and are pretty boisterous.
Here are a few shots from the rookery
All taken with the Nikkor 70-300mm VR mounted on a D90
The Lemon Bay Conservancy has acquired 80 acres of the former Wildflower golf course and renamed it the Wildflower Preserve. Access is limited to guided tours at present as they are working to create paths and facilities along the trail. As a part of their fundraising efforts, they are offering guided tours and other supervised activities until the site is ready for general access.
One of the conservancy members is also a member of the Photo Adventures Camera Club and we were invited for a tour as an incentive to enter the Wildflower Photo Contest which is a fundraiser for the site and includes cash prizes.
We had our opportunity for a tour on Jan 10 and met at 2PM in the parking lot. This was to be a familiarization tour around the property as a group with a guide so we didn’t expect to see much in the way of wildlife but, that didn’t stop everyone from bringing a camera, or two, along anyway. I brought my new Coolpix 7100 and D90 with the 105mm Micro-Nikkor and 70-300mm VR.
If you go out there, look to their website for openings and tours. We met at 2PM so, didn’t think we would see much in the way of wildlife but, it was for orientation purposes, and we were just pleased to see a new location being developed. Some of the ponds are former water hazards for the golf course and were covered in algae. But, other areas had good flow and there is a tidal portion as well.
Shortly after entering the marked Blue path, we found this little skipper busy in the sunshine. In fact, there were plenty of bugs about making me glad that I took the 105mm with me. I was chasing this butterfly who seemed to be attending a convention of bugs. In the first picture, you can see a housefly on the same plane of focus but, change focus to another leaf and you find a leafhopper and a picture-winged fly with it.
At the entrance and along the path you will find a lot of volunteer effort going in to making this a great place for conservation. Just click on the pictures for a larger view.
Birds n bugs's Blog 