photoartflightGreat Egret Nest With Chicks
Posted on December 11, 2020
A series of images of Great Egret chicks by & in the nest. The featured image was taken @ 500mm with a Tamron 150-600mm lens with a Canon R.
Wood Storks From St. Augustine Rookery
Posted on December 10, 2020
We found many Wood Storks at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Rookery on our trip there last January. They seem to like nests more in the top of tall large trees and many times you see multiple nests in the same treetop. It is an interesting place to photograph a wide variety of birds, many nesting there. They are constantly coming & going and it can be quite noisy at times. For this post I am featuring some of the Wood Storks from the same general area around one treetop. Some think they are ugly birds, but I prefer to think of them as interesting photo subjects with character. They also seemed to interact with Spoonbills quite often. The featured image is a 2 image slight pano to not crop off it’s feet in the branches.
TriColored Herons
Posted on December 8, 2020
Still going through images from our Florida photo trip last year. This time I am posting Tricolored Heron Images. The images here are still from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Rookery. The featured image was taken with a Tamron 150-600mm lens @ 450mm with a Canon R.
Great Egrets With Breeding Plumage
Posted on December 6, 2020
When we were photographing last year at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Rookery we saw a lot of Great Egrets with their Breeding Plumage. Great Egrets are of breeding age when they about two years old. As they get into breeding plumage, they have long lacy and delicate plumes on their backs. The eye lores (featherless skin between the bill and eyes) turn from yellow to lime green, and the top of the upper bill turns dark. Also sometimes it seems their neck and other areas look “more feathery”. Below are a few examples of their Breeding Plumage.
Wood Stork Flying In With Nesting Material
Posted on December 5, 2020
I am going through old files from previous photo trips to post images here. These were from our Photo Trip to Florida last January. Even though I am retired, I never got to posting many images from this trip. These were also from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Rookery. We spent 2 days there before we moved on to our next destination south and each day here was slightly different for the opportunities to photograph certain birds. Also I was surprised to be able to photograph so many nests and nests with chicks. I was mostly using the Canon R with the Tamron 150-600mm because it was so warm & humid it was hard to carry more lenses. Plus it was the perfect lens with the wide zoom range. Even at 150mm I had to do a few panoramas of nesting birds to get the whole nest & bird in. We also stopped here again on our way back home since we had to pass by.
The above panorama shows a variety of nesting birds in one tree at 8:34 in the morning. Mostly Egrets & Wood Storks. As the day progressed there were many more in the tree but I did not shoot another panorama showing all the birds & nests. I should have continued and photographed the right side also showing even more birds in that one tree.
Snowy Egrets From St. Augustine Alligator Farm
Posted on December 3, 2020
Because of the Covid 19 restrictions we have not traveled from home. I was going through images from a trip last January to Florida. The images used here were taken at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm & Rookery. It was a Great photo destination and they seem to cater to photographers. With a membership, they offer early hours to photographers& it can get very crowded in some of the areas. The Rookery area has a boardwalk going through it above the water & the alligators. It attracts a lot of photographers because there are so many nesting birds in the trees in the Rookery. The alligators provide protection to the birds’ nests in the trees above the water & the gators. I also saw quite a few birds walking on the shoreline by the alligators. I guess they are well feed since they seemed to leave the birds alone. I was using a Tamron 150-600mm lens on a Canon R which was a perfect combination to photograph there. I Since you are in a large gated boardwalk area it was nice to not lug too much gear around with all the photographers, tripods & other visitors. Usually I do not like photographing in commercial wildlife areas, but it was a nice area with nice people running the Alligator Farm. These are images I did not post before. The featured image was taken @ 600mm with the Canon R.
Roseate Spoonbill FlyBy
Posted on March 5, 2020
Here are a series of images of Roseate Spoonbills in flight. These are from a previous trip to Florida, but did not post them before. One of my favorite birds to photograph! Plus they are a Large and Colorful bird. Easier to fill the frame and you definitely see them coming! Also they are interesting to watch how they interact with each other in the tree tops. My next post will show some of those images. Being retired now I have time to go through my large backlog of past trips. These are all taken back then with a Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens on a Canon 7D (Full Frame FOV ~ 640mm)
Cattle Egret At St. Augustine Alligator Farm
Posted on May 17, 2019
Here are a few more images from our trip to the Rookery at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. It is taking a while to go through all the images I shot at multiple places in Florida. It was fun to see a Cattle Egret in with all the other birds at the Rookery. The majority of birds were the larger Herons, Egrets, Spoonbills, Storks, etc., so I was glad to get a few images before a Little Blue Heron chased it off.
Great Egret – Breeding Plumage
Posted on April 29, 2019
This Great Egret was at the very top of a tree that was loaded below with other nests of various types of birds. It really stood out against the bright blue sky. Photographed @ 600mm with a Tamron 150-600mm lens.
Same tree, off to one side
Tricolored Heron Nest With Eggs
Posted on April 26, 2019
I have not posted recently because we were traveling to a variety of spots for a photography vacation. The featured image is a Tricolored Heron Nest in a rookery at one of our stops. The image is a 2 image panorama @ 600mm and I did not want to zoom out to get it all in so I went with 2 handheld shots to assemble for the final image. I also wanted to show a little more to the right & left around the nest. It was an interesting spot to photograph with a wide variety of nesting birds with probably over 100 nests throughout the rookery. I was trying out a 150-600mm lens and it seemed to work extremely well with a Canon R mirrorless camera body. Especially with the White birds in bright sunlight, all types of Egrets, Herons & Wood Storks, etc. The Canon R did not blow out any of the highlights and had amazing detail in the “whites”. It especially worked well with the fine feathery Breeding Plumage
Tricolored Heron Eggs in Nest
Another single image from a 2 image series showing nest, but cutting off right bill. 2nd image would show more to the right background.
photoartflight 