zackiedawg

Yep - back to the wetlands Saturday! Heat index was 118 degrees F, so it was a bit cooler this time. ;). Here are some of the critter highlights: Grasshopper singing noisily away with those wings: Killdeer, stretching out his wing and leg: A very tiny bird, very far away, shot with a very long focal length and a very big crop...but since I hadn't seen a least sandpiper in a few years, I was willing to take what I could get: One more shot of the killdeer, with that lovely orange eye ring: A red-bellied woodpecker, hanging out at the entrance to its new home, which it was carving out last week: A Florida softshell turtle cruising by secretly underwater...except the water was shallow enough that I could clearly see him: A juvenile glossy ibis, waiting for a parent to return and give it some food: A black-necked stilt standing in the shallow water, keeping an eye out for any threats: And the reason for that vigilance is that the juvenile stilt was standing nearby: Also being very vigilant was this momma alligator, sitting up on the bank in the shade, and hiding behind some palm trees, watching me very closely as I wandered past its nest:

Headed out to the wetlands again this past weekend...it's really weighing the ups vs downs - the heat and humidity are oppressive and disgusting, but at the same time, there are so few people there that I almost have the entire wetland to myself...and the critters. I normally walk right past the nature center at the entrance to the wetlands trails and boardwalks, but this time I stopped in to cool off and grab some water before heading out - and while in there, decided to take a shot at the cute baby alligators in the tank: A lovely juvenile pied-billed grebe looking quite fluffy: And speaking of juveniles...this freshly hatched moorhen chick was straying out on its own - at least for such a small chick - mom was about 8 feet away keeping an eye out: I heard lots of small birds in the trees calling out in alarm, and when I looked up, I saw why - a Cooper's hawk was circling high overhead, looking for any birds not paying enough attention to become lunch: A black-necked stilt mom (background) was taking one of her chicks out for a flight - the chicks had only just started flying in the past week or so: This gaudy and bold fellow is one of Florida's favorite birds - the roseate spoonbill: Closeup with a green iguana: One of the juvenile black-necked stilts feeding in the mud flats: Very close up with a double-crested cormorant:

Hot and humid again, the wetlands were at heat index around 118 Saturday...not very many people out there in the summer - and even though there are less birds and wildlife than winter, I find sometimes being the only person out there means I often come upon some species not normally seen, and they don't seem threatened at all with my presence, letting me get reasonably close. So here are Saturday's selections... Black-bellied whistling duck having a rest: And nearby, the ducklings were enjoying swimming and feeding: As with last week, the killdeer were still hanging around the flats: The pied-billed grebe chick was all by itself - I think it was finally old enough to start to learn to be on its own: This red-bellied woodpecker was working on carving out a home in a cypress tree: This young male wood duck was in eclipse plumage...they get much more ornate and colorful when they enter breeding phase: The female wood duck was close by, sitting on a log in the shade with her duckling sitting safely beside her: And a closeup of the adorable wood duckling:

The weekend visit to the wetlands on Saturday...some good sightings, including a first, and a very-long-time-since... Black-bellied whistling duck family: This fella was my long-time-since bird - I had spotted one far away about 5 years ago and couldn't get much of a shot...one flew by 3 years ago too high to get any detail...the last time I got a good shot of one was about 12 years ago - it's called a killdeer: Had to snap a few shots of the killdeer because you never know the next time you'll see one: A yellow-crowned night heron hanging out in the wetlands: And nearby, a juvenile yellow-crowned night heron was taking a deep soak to cool off on a very hot day: A pied-billed grebe was swimming along as the chick with the white and black stripes on his head follows hoping for some food: The never before bird surprise - I will throw in an asterisk on that because technically I've seen 1/2 of one about 12 years ago - was this lovely fulvous whistling duck couple: The previous sighting was a half-breed hybrid between a fulvous whistling duck and a black-bellied whistling duck - as close as I had come to a fulvous until now. One more look at the surprising find - first time I've ever seen or heard of them in these wetlands, and even stranger to find them in the summer: When it's really hot, and you're panting from the heat, the best thing to do is to sit down and have a rest in the shade. This great blue heron had the right idea:

By the way...the one strange Covid effect I got other than the cold stuff was - even before I was feeling any symptoms, my taste buds went wacko. Drinking a sweet tea, I thought I got a bad batch as it tasted like someone put in vinegar instead of sugar. A Coke tasted the same. That night, the cold like symptoms hit. The taste thing lasted 3 days, fading a bit on day 3 - basically anything that was supposed to be sweet tasted like vinegar...even things you don't think of as 'sweet' like tomato sauce or cheeses. I spent 3 days eating mostly bread and water because everything else tasted horrible! Thank you on the sympathies for the heat and humidity - I'm sure many would agree with you and I can't disagree myself! As a former Californian, I miss the concept of dry heat. And that you can have a day that hits 110 degrees, go outside and not sweat...and that night, you can open the windows because it drops into the 60s. Here, we hit 98 in the day, and 82 at night...we don't really ever cool down! (and thanks on the photos comments too!)

Yep - been there, done that. The Covid thing was more of an annoyance for me than anything else - never got any really bad symptoms - just nose and throat...but those positive tests just blast all plans! Fortunately for me, no travel or Covid issues getting in the way this past weekend - just had to march around with the temperature at 98 and humidity exceeding 80% - for heat indexes soaring past 120...then flee before the thunderstorms arrived and hit me with lightning. Here's some of the wetlands activity from this past Saturday: Black-necked stilt flying past me: Green heron standing on the rail, looking annoyed at me approaching - since so few people are in the wetlands, the birds think they can take over the boardwalk: Double-crested cormorant closeup with its beautiful eyes: Cute black-bellied whistling duckling: Smooth looking pied-billed grebe, wet from a dive, yet managing to sit on the mirrored water without a ripple: A cloudless sulphur butterfly: The beautiful male least bittern on a branch over the ewater: And he's on those branches over the water because he can use his secret jack-in-the-box neck to stab down at fish below, for a nice meal:

After missing out on the wetlands for the past two weeks - first because of Covid and second because I was away at Disney, yesterday I was finally able to get back out there to see what I've been missing. There's not as much action in the summer, but that's relative - Florida's most dead season for wildlife is still probably ten times what some places get. Of course, you have to be willing to walk around in 97 degrees with 85% humidity, heat indexes exceeding 115 degrees and constant threat of pop-up thunderstorms. But I just had to get back out there: Double-crested cormorant closeup - love their amazing eye color, and also the blue lining inside their mouths: The beautiful pink birds of Florida are always hanging around in the summer...the roseate spoonbill: The pretty black-bellied whistling ducks have hatched their adorable bumble-bee-colored ducklings, and were closely watching over them: A sneaky male least bittern hiding in the reeds and hunting for fish - I had a sliver between the leaves to get a shot: Closeup of one of the adorable little whistling ducklings: Male red-winged blackbird calling out to its mate: A very surprise visitor to our wetlands...aside from being the first time I've ever seen one at this wetland location, they're also typically winter visitors to Florida, so it was particularly strange to find it in the heart of the summer...the giant American White Pelican: A great blue heron flying past:

OK. So I've been away from the boards for a while - it's been a hectic few weeks, one of which involved no photography, and one which involved some phone shots. On June 2nd I caught Covid from a co-worker...despite the vaccine and booster, it still got through - admittedly my symptoms weren't really too different from a bad cold, with the strange addition of my taste buds converting anything sweet to tasting like vinegar. I managed to get through it by 6/7, and scored 4 consecutive negative tests in time to feel good to go to Disney World on 6/10 for a 5 day trip. That's where the phone came in. The night before I left for Disney, my living room big screen TV decided to die. I didn't have the time to deal with it, but it had me discombobulated and thinking about it as I packed that night. The next morning, I packed my car and headed up to Disney, only to arrive and discover I had left my camera bag with all my equipment sitting back home on my desk in my office. So I had to get by with a phone (and not even a great one - iPhone 8 ) as my sole photographic device. I can say for absolute sure I will never be happy with a phone as my camera...I hated everything about using it - no viewfinder, no dials, no spot focus, just the whole interaction was unpleasant for me. And then just to throw a bonus cherry on top, when I got back from Disney, bought a new TV, got it all hooked up, all while trying to unpack, do laundry, and get back to the office the next day...my AC started blowing warm air. Motor died! So had to get that fixed while getting caught up at work. Phew! So now, looking back, I can add a few shots to this weekly thread - though not much - just some of the Disney snaps with my phone from the 10th - 12th... The Riviera Resort as seen from the Caribbean Beach resort: Cinderella's Castle in Magic Kingdom, with storm clouds threatening: Epcot was having the Flower & Garden festival...here's one of the topiaries of Pooh: A Bambi topiary and display garden: And here's the real Pooh, out with his net: And the Seven Dwarves in foliage version:

More wetlands critters from this past weekend's visit... Black-bellied whistling ducks grooming in stereo: A juvenile little blue heron fishing in the shallows: Egyptian goose: Wood stork mom with two growing chicks in the nest: The cute black-necked stilt chicks are starting to roam around more, with the parents keeping a close eye: Purple martin parents are busy flying all around gathering up bugs for their hungry chicks...when they return to the martin houses, they've got mouthfuls of flying ants: Closeup with a green iguana up in a tree: A purple gallinule chick trying to keep pace with mom crossing an open patch of shallow mud and water: One of the black-necked stilt parents watching her chicks as they wander around and feed:

The sweep pano was indeed a neat feature - I had it on all my Sony cameras up until the A6600, which dropped it. Do I miss it? Well, kind of - I admit I didn't use it very often - sort of taken for granted that it was always there. When I did use it, I thought it was great and very convenient....so I certainly wish it was still offered on the newer Sony cameras - given I probably took 10-15 shots with it per year out of some 30,000 shots a year...it's not something that I can't live without. And I can still do pano stitching with software if I really wanted to.

Last time I took that route was in 2011 - I had just picked up a NEX3 as my first experiment in mirrorless, shooting alongside my A580 DSLR, which was still my main camera. For the NEX3, which I had only owned a month or two, I just had the kit 18-55mm, and on the A580, my primary lens was the 18-250mm which was great for the overall versatility, plus the Tamron 10-24mm UWA which came in very handy in all the cities, especially walking around Quebec. I had my Minolta 300mm APO with me, and used it a few times for shots of shore from the ship cruising the Saguenay, but really just used it to justify having brought it! The 18-250mm would have covered me just fine. Photos from that cruise (we took it from Quebec back to Ft. Lauderdale): Eurodam, October 2011 Photo Gallery by Justin Miller at pbase.com If it were today with my A6600, I'd be using my 18-135mm (which is my kit lens technically), and likely bring the 70-300mm for more reach when needed, plus the 10-18mm for the walkaround city and street shots. A few other lenses might come along, but those three would cover 99% of all needs just fine. I'd likely leave the big 100-400mm and 200-600mm home as I'd be flying to the ship and the few times I'd probably need or want them wouldn't be worth trying to pack and fly with them.

Back to the very hot, very humid wetlands - summer is here, so it's getting to our nasty weather time. But at least the bird wildlife hasn't left yet. Here's some of the action from Saturday... A juvenile red-shouldered hawk hanging out across from its nest - now knowing how to fly, but still not ready to stray too far away: This very brave, or very stupid, leucistic pigeon decided to fly over and land in the tree just above the young hawk: The juvenile hawk decided to lunge for the pigeon - but fortunately for the pigeon, he wasn't very skilled yet at hunting and the pigeon got away pretty easily: A moorhen momma feeding her chick: Red-winged blackbird mom bringing a mouthful of bugs to its newly hatched chicks: The once almost extinct atala butterflies are emerging from their chrysalises this time of year - this one looked like one of the adults who had layed eggs a few months back: There will soon be many more - lots of chrysalises all over the coontie plants: This common gallinule is a juvenile - still grey in color rather than the full black coat...yet it had already had chicks of its own - the bird equivalent of a teen mom! But she was doing a very good job of feeding and caring for her chicks: A beautiful male least bittern backlit by the sun: An adorable baby marsh rabbit bunny:

Short trip to the wetlands Saturday, cut short by a violent thunderstorm...I got back in my car and drove home about 10 miles south, and a few minutes after pulling into my garage, we had 2 inches of rain drop in 30 minutes, 800 lightning strikes, and winds around 65MPH. Neighbor's screen over his pool shredded, and a tree knocked over in my backyard. Funny, it was perfectly sunny and nice earlier that same day...that's Florida for you! This big wildflower grows heartily in the wetlands in the summer - called a scarlet rose mallow hibiscus: A female downy woodpecker looking for grubs: An osprey on lookout on a dead tree, seemed to be staring at something in the distance with some intensity: A cattle egret minding over its nest of growing chicks, having a sibling fight in the background: A moorhen chick standing alone (actually, mom was just a few feet away): A wood stork drying out on a small pond apple tree after a bath:

I managed to get out to the wetlands twice this weekend - and so far, only finished loading and processing the batch from Saturday, May 7th - which was just a short few hours' walk after getting a haircut. The day was overcast and threatening rain, so I made a last-minute decision to blow the few spare hours I had after the haircut to check out the wildlife. I went again on Sunday, a better-day sun-wise, but those will have to come in a separate post when I get around to them. For now, here are some of the Saturday sightings: A black-crowned night heron hanging out by the water: Closeup of a blue dasher dragonfly: Momma mottled duck with all her ducklings following her around: A great blue heron and a pig frog...things going very well for the heron but not so well for the frog: The pig frog lined up properly in the heron's bill, inevitably headed one-way...down that throat: This fella is just showing off. The male wood duck in full breeding plumage, looking like quite the gaudy Hollywood star, all dappered up: Meanwhile, the female wood duck doesn't need to do much to attract a mate - she can be as plain-jane as she wants...here, she's got a ragged bunch of growing ducklings to watch over:

I didn't go out to the wetlands on Sunday of this weekend, but Sunday May 1 I did enjoy a relaxing afternoon in my pool, and as always I brought my camera out to sit poolside in case I saw anything interesting in the back yard worth shooting. There were a few opportunities, so here they are: My buddy Fred, a northern curly-tailed lizard that runs up to the edge of the pool when he sees me in there, hoping I'll feed him any bugs floating on the surface: I didn't have much in the pool, but I went ahead and emptied out my skimmer basket, which had bits of leaves, seeds, branches, and bugs - as soon as I emptied the basket onto the deck, he ran right over into the pile and started finding all the bugs in there to eat - it takes no imagination to figure out how this lizard got the name: A young northern cardinal in my hibiscus: The squirrels in the yard are always interesting to watch - especially when they fight over who is the 'king of the deck' and gets all the fallen sunflower seeds from the bird feeders. One squirrel had jumped up on a plant pot to eat some seeds when another who considers himself the boss climbed up the side of the planter, and proceeded to full-on tackle the other squirrel right off the side of the planter: You can see by the facial expression of the squirrel being tackled that he was very much taken by surprise...yet by the time they had fallen another 5 inches through the air, the tackled squirrel had regained composure and was fighting back, as they both cascaded towards the ground: A mourning dove, heading back up to the roof of my house, after having its fill of sunflower seed:

My Saturday wetlands visit, last day of April...interrupted by some rainshowers on an overcast day, but still plenty to see... Momma mottled duck with her ducklings: Red-winged blackbird mom feeding her hungry new hatchlings (about 3 days old): A pair of male common gallinules having a knock-down, drag-out fight for who gets to mate with the eligible ladies of this patch of water: Photographer and cormorant both caught out in a rainshower...the cormorant just sits there and accepts it, being a water bird...the photographer figures he might as well snap some photos while getting wet, to make it worthwhile: A tricolored heron chick, large enough to wander out of the nest and explore its surroundings, but not yet ready to fly: A brazen pair of pigeons, not shy about procreating right there in front of an audience and the paparazzi too: I call these bunnies, because it's what I always grew up calling baby rabbits, but technically, this is a 'kitten', which is the proper name for baby rabbits. They're cute no matter what you call them: