outdoor photography

Purple Sandpiper This morning I drove out to Jetty Park in Brevard Co. hoping to find a Purple Sandpiper that was seen there recently.  I arrived a around 8:30, and for about a half-hour I looked in vain for the sandpiper.  But then I met another birder there who had just seen a Common Eider. So I diverted my attention for a while looking for that duck, since it would be  lifer.  I looked and looked but could not find it.  But then another birder friend came to my rescue.  She had a scope and located it for me.  In my binoculars it looked simply like a brown rock, but in the scope it was the Common Eider. That's my second lifer of 2014! After enjoying the Eider for a while, I returned to looking for the Purple Sandpiper.  I scoured the rocky jetty where it had been seen, but I it either wasn't there or was hidden from view.  And then a little after 10 am I saw it flying north across the river toward the jetty where others had seen it befo...

Northern Gannet Yesterday I went to Jetty Park to find a Brown Booby that has been seen there.  Without a scope I was only able to get tiny photos of the bird, with only enough pixels to identify it.  But there were a few Northern Gannets hunting relatively close to the fishing pier. These birds are wonderfully fun to watch, especially as they dive for fish. Northern Gannet Northern Gannet The Brown Booby was a lifer for me, so even though the bird was far beyond the distance that my camera/lens could produce a usable image, I thought I'd share a couple. These photos show the blueish-gray bill with pale yellowish legs and no visible white on the upper-tail coverts.  I so wish I'd brought my doubler and tripod. Brown Booby Brown Booby

Brown Pelican Yesterday morning I went out to Jetty Park near Port Canaveral.  I went there to see gulls.  I wanted to see black-backed gulls, but I was also hoping to get better at identifying immature gulls. I'm getting pretty good at identifying adult gulls, but immatures still give me some trouble at times.  I didn't realize that, since I'm not a Brevard County resident, I would be charged $10 to enter the park.  But I got over that irritation when I got out of the car and right off the bat found one adult Great Black-backed Gull, and then five minutes later, an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull.  Then I saw three Bonaparte's Gulls floating in the water. As I walked over to the beach, I found younger gulls to test my ID skills.  The one below is a Lesser Black-backed Gull. Lesser Black-backed Gull But the gull below gave me some trouble. It was a large gull, and I'm thinking it's a first year Great Black-backed Gull, given its large size, wi...