outdoor photography

Double-crested Cormorant A couple weeks ago I came across this Cormorant with a huge fish on Lake Eola.  The lighting was wrong to capture him swallowing the fish, but this particular shot turned out okay.

Great Blue Heron Yesterday morning I drove up to Overlook Park.  It's about 15 minutes from my house, and I check it out regularly to see what ducks may be out on Lake Jesup.  It's a very small park, so I never expect to find much, but yesterday morning was very enjoyable.  A Great Blue Heron was begging me to take his picture, several Limpkins were out busily gathering snails, some Double-crested Cormorants perched on Lake Jesup for me, and a Bonaparte's Gull stayed pretty close to shore.  I saw nothing new or unusual, but I still had a pretty great 45 minutes before work. Limpkin with Tricolored Heron Limpkin Double-crested Cormorants Bonaparte's Gull Bonaparte's Gull

Northern Gannet I returned to Lighthouse Point Park at Ponce Inlet again in the hopes of finding a Razorbill. We found one far off the jetty.  My father, who's in town for Christmas, located it in his scope, and I was able to locate it briefly with my binoculars.  It was very far away (I probably would not have been able to identify it with my binoculars), the winds were strong and the waves were high, and the Razorbill appeared to be spending a lot of time "flying" under water.  So no photos of the Razorbill, but later this week we're hoping to go to the gulf where people have been getting pretty good photos of Razorbills. Black Skimmer Black Skimmers, though, were a very different story. There were many there, and a couple were actively bathing and skimming by the shore, making me very happy.  Gulls were numerous too, though not like the last time I came came here.  We found only Herring, Ring-billed and Laughing Gulls, plus Royal and Sandwich Terns...

Great-blue Heron This morning my office parking lot wasn't quite as active as it was yesterday, but I did find a Great Blue Heron and a Pied Billed Grebe that were particularly photogenic.  Really this morning was the morning for flyovers.  I saw about 100 Double-crested Cormorants, 100 Cedar Waxwings, and 4 Glossy Ibises (the first I've seen here).  So that somewhat made up for the lack of activity here. Pied-billed Grebe Double-crested Cormorants Here's a list of the species I saw this morning: Wood Duck 2 Mallard x Mottled Duck (hybrid) 3 Pied-billed Grebe 1 Double-crested Cormorant 100 Great Blue Heron 1 Great Egret 1 Glossy Ibis 4 Black Vulture 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 1 Mourning Dove 3 Red-bellied Woodpecker 2 Downy Woodpecker 1 Blue Jay 4 Fish Crow 1 Carolina Wren 1 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1 Gray Catbird 1 Northern Mockingbird 1 Cedar Waxwing 100 Northern Cardinal 9 Red-winged Blackbird 5 Common Grackle 2 Boat-t...

Double-crested Cormorant This morning at Ft. De Soto I found a couple Cormorants that didn't mind me being close to them.  One was on the beach and one was on a post in the water.  I thought these photos might illustrate the benefit of shooting at eye level.  In the beach photographs below I got as close as I thought would not disturb the bird and then crouched down low to the ground.  If I had stood upright while taking this picture, I would have been looking down on him and the background would be more defined; but by getting down low the sand in the background is more uniformly blurred.  The Cormorant on the post above was shot from a pier.  I tried to position myself to shoot the bird with the sun behind me, but the pier was significantly higher than the bird.  But then I noticed stairs that went down a lower level.  From there, I could stand upright and photograph the bird at eye level. Double-crested Cormorant Double-crested Cormo...

Double-crested Cormorant Cormorants are fun birds. I frequently see them dive for and catch fish, though they are always so far away that I don't have any presentable photographs of them fishing.  But Cormorants by themselves, I think make for pretty fun photos as well. Double-crested Cormorant Double-crested Cormorant Double-crested Cormorant Double-crested Cormorant