outdoor photography

Great Blue Heron This morning I drove to the marina on Lake Monroe.  It was about this time of year that a Royal Tern showed up here last year, and I thought it might be worth checking to see if it might have returned.  I didn't find it, but I did see a Great Blue Heron.  It looked like it was just standing there, not too interested in fishing.  But as I was taking a few shots, it lunged forward and plunged its head into the water.  It came out with pretty large Needlefish.  At first I thought it was a gar, but one of my friends gave me a positive ID. Great Blue Heron Great Blue Heron He only stood in the water with the gar for a few seconds. Almost immediately, he flew onto the grass so that he could begin the process of killing and consuming his prey. Great Blue Heron He repeatedly stabbed the fish, puncturing its head and ensuring that it was good and dead. This seems to explain why he wanted to fly onto the grass.  This way the ...

Least Tern Least Terns have returned to Central  Florida.  They're easily my favorite tern, and thankfully they breed here. The best place to find them in Seminole County is at the marina. There were at least ten or or so at the marina at Lake Monroe. There were also about 50 Forster's Terns and 50 Caspian Terns along the side of the marina, which I believe pretty big numbers for this time of year. Least Tern

Forster's Tern A couple weeks ago I was at the marina on Lake Monroe looking for (and not finding) a Royal Tern that had been seen there earlier. So I occupied my time photographing other terns.  I shared photos of Caspian Terns in another post, but there were also Forster's Terns patrolling the marina area. Most of them still had light heads and dark eye patches, but this one has progressed pretty far toward breeding plumage. So I concentrated on this particular individual, with a nearly all black cap and a deeply forked tail (at least on one side). Forster's Tern If you're not familiar with Forster's Terns, here's one in it's basic/winter plumage. As you can see, their looks change a bit this time of year. Forster's Tern By the way, the Royal Tern did show up there a few days later, though it did not cooperate very well for photos. It spent it's time on the seawall east of the marina, too distant (and too cluttered) for good photos...

Osprey On Saturday I attended the Wekiva River Christmas Bird Count. I'm just now getting around to working on the photographs, though.  My wife was in a car accident that evening, and she's been in the hospital ever since.  It's not as bad as that sounds, though.  Her main injury was a broken foot, and it needs surgery, but she has so much swelling that they're waiting for it to go down before operating.  So life's a little crazy at home.  This evening, though, I have a little time to work on some photos from the CBC.  While at Lake Monroe looking for gulls and terns, we saw this Osprey perched not far away, and it seemed rather curious about me.  As I walked to where I'd get a decent background, it just followed me with its eyes, and then it did this little head-tilt thing.  I've seen them do this many times before and it always cracks me up.  It seems to me to be a look of curiosity, but I don't know for sure. At any rate, it wasn't ph...

Sunrise Over Lake Monroe This past Saturday I had to be at a little park on the southern shore of Lake Monroe before 7 am.  He was running in a 5k race, so I brought my point and shoot to photograph him during the event.  The sunrise over Lake Monroe that morning was pretty spectacular, so I found a couple spots to brace my camera (since I didn't have a tripod) and took a few landscape photos of the sunrise.  The top image is an HDR composite image, and the image below is a single image.  Both of these were taken with the Canon PowerShot S100HS. Oh, and my son came in first in his high school and first in his age group.  So it was a win all around. Sunrise Over Lake Monroe