Species cavalcade; Birds of prey

This is the third and last (did I hear some one shout "At last!"?? :-) species cavalcade, at least from this trip. Except birds of prey there will be some scavengers as well. I hope you have got some inspiration and maybe motivation to make a visit to this El Dorado of birds.

Black Vulture.
It is a very common bird, you can see them soaring in the wind, and the V-shaped wings are very distinct. Apparently they like cars, at least if you judge by the number of signs that warn drivers to avoid parking in the vicinity of a tree. In addition to that you are supposed to cover your tires since they like to pick in the rubber. Vulture-chewing-gum?
This particular vulture were sitting with his three mates on a rail in the back of a pick-up that was parked in the shade of a big tree, so there might just be some truth in the warning signs.


Turkey Vulture.
This one is also quite common and you often see it close to garbage cans and at resting places. The picture is taken in mid day and the warm air close to the ground makes the image kind of blurry.


Peregrine,
or at least that's my guess. It flew over me in the Everglades and it felt like an unusual place for a peregrine since I am used to see them in more mountainous environments with steep cliffs or in populated / industrial areas where there are high buildings.
 

Crested Cara cara.
I saw this one in the mirror when driving and it landed just beside the road. So I naturally had to turn  the car around at try to get some pictures of it :-) Since we were heading for home the camera was of course in it's bag in the trunk of the car. It was talking a walk along the road side probably looking after some road kill. Unfortunately it was not so willing to cooperate and it kept turning it's back towards me all the time :-).


Osprey.
They are everywhere and you can get really close, unlike the ones I see back in Sweden.

Once again I am guessing. It is really hard to judge when you meet a "new" specie for just a few moments and especially without some proper guides. I have tried to decide its name by looking at the internet and finally ended up with Coopers hawk, even thou it can be a Red-shouldered Hawk.
Anyway, this one were sitting beside the road fully concentrated at something in the ditch and it was reluctant to move so I had time to get out of the car and take some shots.


Burrowing Owl.
Cosy little owl that I didn't get so many  pictures of as I thought I would, I hope to get more some other time.


Bald Eagle.
A world wide iconic bird. Hope to see more of this eagle some time.


Next up is how I found this Eagle.

Species cavalcade; Fish catchers

As promised here is a small cavalcade of some birds that catch fish and other things that live in the water, hope you'll enjoy it :-)

Roseate spoonbill

Wood Stork

White Ibis

Glossy Ibis


White Pelican


Brown Pelican


Anhinga


Belted Kingfisher


Next time; Birds of prey

Species cavalcade; Heron

I am at the end of my story from my Florida trip 2012. If you like to watch or take pictures of birds, this is my recommendation; Start saving for a trip immediately :-)

Tons of species and they are really easy to get close.  Some may think it is to cheat when taking pictures of birds that are not afraid of humans, and to some degree I agree, but all animals and birds shown are wild, they are just more tolerant in certain areas to let people getting close.

This post and the next ones will concentrate on showing some of all the species that I managed to catch on my sensor. Nothing fancy but more as end of my trip. 

This post is about the different kinds of herons I encountered. Hopefully I have also got their names right :-)

Great Blue Heron


Great Egret


Tricolored Heron


Little Blue Heron


This is probably not a snowy egret but instead it is more likely a juvenile little blue heron. They are apparently completely white before they get the blue colour. But their legs are greenish the whole time.



Green Heron


Yellow-crowned Night-heron



Next post is some other kinds of fish catching birds :-)

Close up; Anhinga

Anhinga is the American name of what in Swedish is called "Amerikansk ormhalsfågel" which in translation should be something like "American snake-neck-bird". The Swedish name is a quite good description of how you would see this bird when on the hunt. But Anhinga sounds a little more exotic and has probably some good explanation :-)


It is fascinating to see how it slowly puts it head and neck up of the water and then twists and bends it without one can see its body or any other movement in the water.
The Anhinga is a relative to cormorant, at least I think so,  they look alike, they also swims under water to catch fish. Both species also sits on branches to dry out their wings in the sun.



I did note one thing that is different and that is their method of catching the fish. While the Cormorant uses the hook at the end of its beak to hold the fish, the Anhinga penetrates the fish like a spear with its pointy beak.  It would be interesting to know how or rather why such an evolution occurred.


This method isn't without problems. How do you get the fish off the "spear" and in the mouth without using hands? Well it will take some fiddling or shake, rattle and roll as some one might put it :-) The risk of loosing the fish in to the water is obvious.


Well since evolution never accepts a faulty design and the Anhinga looks to thriving, I am sure they now how to manage that small problem :-)



And if they would drop the fish there is probably no worries. The fish is certainly dead or heavily wounded so it is easy to get in the water and pick it up again.
But in some situations complications may arise anyway...

Close up: Green Heron

The Green Heron became somewhat of a favourite during this trip. A heron is something that I usually describes as a big bird, but this one is a quite small little bugger. Big as a crow it sneaks around in hallow water looking for small crayfish, fish and other jummy things.




It has a nice mix of colours and they work well as camouflage. It melts in to the vegetation and slips away from other predators while it hunts.



Apart from being beautiful it has a cool attitude. I has earlier written about when is slipped right by me BELOW my 500 mm lens while I was sitting there and here it is like a cowboy with a straw in its mouth while catching a fish as it was nothing hard at all :-) 



My first meeting was down at Eco Pond, later it was sitting in the shadows at Anhinga Trail.



After that I saw it everywhere :-) Typical behaviour is sitting on a straw just above the water, quietly waiting and without warning attack and capture some almost invisible animal.


What I couldn't get was how such a small bird where able to catch anything in the water without falling of the straw and in to the water.
The solution came when I saw this one; Out of that small body it managed to pull out a gigantic neck and one has to one self; how in earth can it get room for that long neck in that small body? Another of natures wonders :-)

Close encounter

During one of the days spent at Ding Darling, I was thinking of what other animals I would like to take pictures of while in Florida. Bald Eagle of course, owls would be nice and a raccoon could be fun. I had some tips and hints of where to find them and while slowly driving along the one way road I where planning how to get more details and getting to those spots.

Behind the next bend is a car parked somewhat on the wrong side. It is clearly stated that you should park at the right side of the road to let others pass without your car being in the way. A little bit further down the road is a man standing in the middle of the road with a big lens on a tripod doesn't make it less strange. So I suspect there is something nice to take pictures of :-). So I parked my car - on the right side - get my camera and slowly approaches the car and ask them what's up. " Its a female raccoon with a couple of cubs in there" said the the family in the car and were pointing in to the dense brushes.

Did my wish already come through? I quietly walked up to the guy with the big lens and he pointed in to the wood. Just a few meters in between twigs and branches I spotted the small family while they slowly were moving parallel to the road. The wood were quite dense and very dark so there were not ideal conditions to take any pictures.

I hurried up the road to find a gap in between the branches and finally  finds a small opening. It doesn't take more than a half a minute and then a small face pops up and looks straight at me. Shortly after that the family gets out of the opening and crosses the road just a couple of meters away from me. Thankfully I got my 100-400 mm with me as I left the car, because my other option would be the 500 and would have been useless at this point.



The raccoon-family carries on on the other side, still parallel to the road. On that side the wood is just a few meters wide and beyond that is the water. They can be out to get a drink or they will continue along the road. I put my money on the second option ( I could get through the wood anyway so that was not really a option for me) and move quickly up road to find a open space. Just a little bit later I find what I was looking for; a piece of open grassy/muddy ground. I lay down and wait.

While waiting a car pulls over and the driver asks what I was doing. "Waiting for a raccoon" is the simple answer.  "Oh, then I'll go on. Got a lot of them at home by my garbage can". Seems to be very common animals here i n Florida.

Nothing is happening and I start to figure out if I locked the car before I left it. It is parked out of sight and I have some photo gear inside that easily could get lost if I stay here to long...

Then I get a glimpse of a movement in the dark. I recognize the characteristic black "eyes" and the white stripes in the face of the raccoon. The first cub carefully get out in the open and looks cautiously at me. "hey guys, there's a strange dude up ahead". But the mother gives the go-ahead and they continues moving.


A quick look at the mother and then full speed - straight towards me. Now I feel the difference towards the 7D. 5DII isn't that quick in focusing moving targets.


The cubs passes me in less than a meter and whiel the mother is closing in, I start to wonder if she could be aggressive. I am quite exposed if she's in that mood. Raccoons can be really tough, at least according to what I have seen on tv and mothers with cubs isn't to be played with :-)  The mother checks me out and passes me sideways...



...but since the cubs already have passed she ignores me and follows the others while I sigh in relife. So I get up, chats a few words with the others that have been taking pictures and hurries back to the car just to find it locked. All is well and a I can enjoy the good feeling of a nice encounter and hopefully some nice shots.

Ding Darling

I'm guessing that it is down to the south west of Florida that all bird go to during the winter in North America. It seems to be crawling with places were birders and photographers gather to watch and take photos of birds. 

One of the most famous places is "Ding Darling". It's an area consisting of water and thick vegetation and trees. The area is easy accessible both on foot, by bike and with a car. You buy a day-pass to the park and drives in along the one way road. That means that you should stop quite often and take your time at each stop. Otherwise you have to drive in to the park ones more, and that is unnecessary waist of time :-)
If you are going to visit the park more than one day, it is actually cheaper to buy a pass that is good for a hole year.
As for many of the Florida parks, the road are a bit higher than the water, but here it is quite easy to get down to water level for those nice eye level photos. There are alligators in the area, but I felt rather safe getting close to the water, keeping one eye in the viewfinder and the other at my surroundings :-)



It is also close to the water were you will encounter the "NoSeeUms". You will feel them before you see them because they have a feisty bite and are really small and hard to see.
I usually don't use mosquito repellent but lather that first day with NoSeeUms I purchased some effective DEET to bring along the forthcoming days. That the eyes were full of tears when driving in the car due to the strong odour was something I had to put up to :-)


Ding Darling has some really big ponds or lakes (even thou it is connected to the sea and is flowing in different directions depending of the tide) so you would bring a heavy telephoto lens such as the 500 mm or bigger if you would like to photograph these pelicans sitting on a sand-bank.


But at the same time, there are a lot of small ponds where you easily can get a shot with smaller lenses Here's a night heron fishing from a branch close to the water.



This green heron came really close to me. So close that I had to call my wife to borrow her compact camera to get a picture since it was sneaking BELOW my 500mm and within 50 cm from my position!



Outside Ding Darling, on the south side of the island called Sanibel, is a small fishing pier and there you can find a lot of birds that are comfortable with humans.
This Egret is shot with a 70mm:


And this tern is shot with a 67mm


Fishermen that stand on the pier is competing with or rather against the pelicans about who will get the fish first. Sometimes it happens that a fisherman gets a pelican as well as a fish on the hook.



The pelican looked to be without harm after this incident and it seemed like it was a quite usual event since no one lifted an eyebrow while the fisherman released the pelican from the hook and took the fish.


One bird that is very common here is the Osprey, much thanks to the good supply of fish of course but also to the fact that there are a lot of man made nesting platforms everywhere in the area.



One moment this one were soaring nice and easy in the wind close to the trees along the shore...



.. and the next moment it dove just in front of me grabbing a twig laying on the sand. I wasn't prepared for that, so the pictures I took were not the sharpest :-)



Unfortunately some clouds always gathered at sunset so those beautiful sunsets with pelicans in silhouette where not to be seen. Well there were one evening, but I was to late and wouldn't make it to the beach, so instead I took this picture straight through the car window, just in pure desperation :-)



I will hopefully have a chance to take them some other time :-)