outdoor photography

Since May, I've been doing a lot of hiking at the Little Big Econ State Forest. The area is one of my favorite places to hike, especially in Central Florida. You can see major portions of the Econ River as well as some of the St. John's River, and there's a beautiful mix of pine flatwoods, marshy flood plains, and everything in between. During the summer the only birds here are breeding birds that I've photographed many times before, so I decided to bring my macro lens with me and focus on flowers, insects and other wildlife. The culmination of these efforts is a vastly expanded catalog of photos with a much greater diversity of species. I decided to celebrate this with a video slide show focusing on all the tracts and trails of the State Forest and Wildlife Management Area. I hope you enjoy it.

Bald Eagle This past Saturday I walked to the St. John's River from the end of Brumley Rd. It's an eight mile walk to get there and back. On the way, a juvenile Bald Eagle flew right by me, and I thought it would be fun to try out the autofocus system on my new Canon 7D mark II. I registered my C3 setting to Shutter priority mode at 1/1250 sec with the autofocus system set on all focusing points (I may change this later). The camera functioned beautifully and just about all my photos came out sharp. I'm incredibly impressed with how this camera performs. Bald Eagle Bald Eagle Bald Eagle Bald Eagle

Pectoral Sandpiper Last week I walked out to the St. Johns River at Puzzle Lake from Brumley Rd with a friend of mine. It was his first time out with me to this location.  We were both hoping for some new Seminole County birds--he wanted Pectoral Sandpiper and Cliff Swallow and I wanted Black Tern and, much less likely, Willet.  We walked about 8 miles and ventured a bit farther north than I've gone in the past.  It seems the farther north I go the better the birding is.  I suspect that's because the Econ River and St. Johns River are closer together and there's more sand flats and mud flats for shorebirds. We missed out on a Willet or any other more rare shorebirds, but we did see several Pectoral Sandpipers.  They were easily the highlight of the morning.  One in particular flew right by me and even landed close enough for me to get my best photos of the species. Pectoral Sandpiper Pectoral Sandpiper Aside from this, good photos were fe...

Spotted Sandpipers on a Stroll Together Yesterday morning I got up early and made it to the end of Brumley Rd at the ungodly hour of 6am. It was still dark out, and I was not looking forward to the 3 mile walk out to the St. Johns River, but it just had to be done, and I had to leave this early if I wanted to be back in time for work.  I walked 8 miles and took a slightly different route than I've done in the past. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn off My Maps when I got in my car, so the map below also shows me driving down Brumley Rd for a little ways: There have been so many good shorebirds seen at Lake Apopka over the last week or so that I was hoping they would share some of their wealth with me at what may be the best shorebird spot in Seminole county (it's only competition is Marl Bed Flats, but that appears to be dried up at the moment). Black-necked Stilt Alarm Call My morning wouldn't have competed with Lake Apopka, but it was still an enjoyable morni...

Rose of Plymouth Brumley Rd Trailhead The Little Big Econ State forest is a fairly large stretch of forest with many trailheads that allow you to see quite a variety of habitats and a diversity of wildlife that I have just recently come to appreciate.  These locations have some of the best birding within Seminole County. Thanks to the wonder of eBird "patches," I can tell you that so far I've seen 145 bird species among these trails and parks, though I've only given much attention to them this year. I've divided my treatment of the SF into two headings: west and east.  As you can see in the map below, there are two main sections of the SF connected by a thin strip along the northern shore of the Econ River. Click Image for PDF view I've visited four trailheads in the state forest.  Snowhill Rd bisects the two main areas. West of Snowhill Rd are the Barr St and Jones East (mountain bike) trailheads, as well as an equestrian trailhead I've not tr...

Black-necked Stilt Yesterday I made the long trek out to the St. John's River at Puzzle Lake from Brumley Rd.  I'm always impressed with place when I go. I was hoping for returning shorebirds, and I didn't get anything new for the year, but it was nice to see returning Greater Yellowlegs and Least Sandpipers, hopefully as a sign of other species to come over the next few weeks.  Killdeer and Black-necked Stilts are stilt there, of course, and it was exciting to see some little chicks running about. Black-necked Stilt Least Sandpiper (one of about 10 I saw)   I added four new birds to the eBird hotspot: Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Wood Duck, Swallow-tailed Kite and Yellow-billed Cuckoo, and I added Ruby-throated Hummingbird to my own list for the hotspot. In all I saw 47 species--here's my eBird checklist . Red-shouldered Hawk (immature) It was also fun to see this Sabatia flower, which I'm pretty sure is a Large Flower Sabatia. I've phot...

Common Yellowthroat Earlier this year I "discovered" a new place for birding in Seminole County.  For a couple years now, I've been looking for a way to get to the St. John's River at Puzzle Lake from Seminole County. Strangely, I've birded Brumley Rd several times but I've never gone to very end of the road, so I've never seen this trailhead. And to my knowledge, no other birders have taken these trails to the St. John's River before.  So in February of this year, I decided this would be my new adventure for Seminole County.  I walked from the trailhead to the St. John's River and back. I've done so six times now, and already I've racked up 116 bird species along the trail and at the river [ field reports ]. The Trails Here's a map of the route I took on my second trip on March 7, 2015.  I'm showing this map because it allows you to see two ways to get out to the flats and back.  Since this trip, I've walked out to the S...