outdoor photography

Pine Warbler with Pine Needles 1/26/2014 One of my favorite places to photograph Pine Warblers is the Econ River Wilderness Area. About a year and a half ago, I took my favorite photos of the species here.  They are the kind of photos I'd like to have for most species--I call them bird-on-a-stick photos.  These are the kinds of photos you see in field guides, etc. You see most of the bird, often in profile, and the background is completely blurred with no detail whatsoever.  I love these images, partly for their beauty, and partly for how difficult they are to achieve, especially with birds that like to perch in messy branches.  With today's software, you can often remove these branches, but I don't do much of this.  I'd rather spend my time taking pictures than messing with them. Here's one of my favorite images from my visit to this park in 2012. Pine Warbler On-a-Stick 6/9/2012 Over the last couple weeks, Pine Warblers have begun singing all over th...

Econ River Wilderness Area Trails The Econ River Wilderness Area is another of my favorite places ot visit in Seminole County.  It's only about 10 minutes from my home, so I can visit there on a whim, which is nice.  The wilderness area covers about  240 acres that extends from Old Lockwood Rd to the Econ River just north of UCF.  There are approximately 3 miles of trails that will take you from pine flatwoods and and sandhill habitats into hard wood and river swamp environments closer to the river. The trails are pretty poorly marked, but if you know your east from the west, it's not much of a problem.  The area is very long from east to west and narrow from north to south, so as long as you know you're heading east, you're going to make it to the river, and as long as you're heading west, you're going to make it to the parking lot. There's one little pond on the property that is visible from Old Lockwood Rd.  There's a trail that will take you ...

Brown-headed Nuthatch I went to Wekiwa Springs State Park this morning hoping to find some Pine Siskins.  I didn't find any (at least none that I could be sure of), but the morning was still fun.  I found dozens of American Goldfinches, especially in the sand hill areas with pines and taller grasses.  Also numerous were Pine Warblers and Eastern Bluebirds.  It was fun to find my first Brown-headed Nuthatches in the park (and in fact, Orange County).  I was looking more for Red-breasted Nuthatches, but these will do for now.  I walked the wet-to-dry boardwalk trail a couple times, and I found a variety of warblers I haven't seen since October: Palm, Yellow-rumped, Orange-crowned, Pine, Black-and-white, Yellow-throated, and an American Redstart. Eastern Bluebird Pine Warbler Chipping Sparrow American Goldfinch

Bay-breasted Warbler This was a wonderful morning.  I joined the Orange Audubon Society's birdwalk at Mead Gardens, and the weather was just spectacular.  It wasn't hot, and it was sunny, and there were a fair number of birds to see. My biggest hope this morning was to photograph a Bay-breasted Warbler.  We did find and photograph one, which made my day, but we also found 9 other warbler species: Black-and-white Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, American Redstart, Northern Parula, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Palm Warbler, Pine Warbler, and Yellow-throated Warbler. Pine Warbler I've been giving myself an education on how to distinguish Pine Warblers from fall Bay-breasted Warblers.  You can see some similarities in the above photos, but immature Pine Warblers are far less yellow, making them more similar.  I don't see color perfectly, so I need to find other ways to distinguish them.  These photos illustrate three helpful clu...

Pine Warbler Pine Warbler Pine Warbler Pine Warbler Pine Warbler Pine Warbler

Pine Warbler Econ River Wilderness Area We have a friendly state-wide competition in Florida every June called "June Challenge." The rules are pretty simple--pick a county, get outside, and see how many birds you can find in that county during the month of June. You can't just hear it; you have to see it in order for it to count in the competition. So throughout the month you're competing with other birders in your county, and you're also hoping that your county does well compared to other counties. So I chose my home county, and even though my county doesn't sport the variety that surrounding counties have, it was a pretty fun month. I posted on the  Birding is Fun blog  about how this challenge gave me a renewed interest in the habitats that are right next door to where I live, but here I'd like to share some of my results. Red-headed Nuthatch Econ River Wilderness Area White-Eyed Vireo Econ River Wilderness Area Eastern Towhee E...

Hun Brown-headed Nuthatch This morning I went to the Econ River Wilderness Area in Seminole County. It was cloudy, and it drizzled a little, so it wasn't a great morning for photos, but I still had a pretty fun morning. I went there mostly in search of a Brown-headed Nuthatch, and thankfully I found three of them.   Brown-headed Nuthatch Brown-headed Nuthatch Along with the nuthatches, it was also fun to see Pine Warblers.  One in particular landed very close to me and sang his wonderful song.  This I think is the closest I've ever been to a Pine Warbler. Pine Warbler Pine Warbler Pine Warbler Eastern Towhees were numerous there, and it was great to photograph an adult male and a juvenile. I really enjoy these birds. Eastern Towhee Eastern Towhee Eastern Towhee Along with these, I saw (but was unable to get good photos of) one Cooper's Hawk and four Northern Bobwhites.  I saw four with my own eyes, and heard a couple as well, bu...

Red-headed Woodpecker This morning we opted for a little change of scenery, and we spent most of the morning mostly in the sandhill and inland scrub habitats at Wekiwa Springs State Park.  I found a bird I'd never seen before, a Bachman's Sparrow, and a couple others I haven't seen this year, including a Short-tailed Hawk and a Summer Tanager.  It's a little frustrating, though, since I didn't get any good photos of any of these species. Red-headed Woodpecker Nevertheless, it was good just to see/hear them (that feels a little like saying it was great just being nominated), and there were several other species there that were really fun to find and photograph.  Wild Turkeys, Eastern Bluebirds, Eastern Towhees and Red-headed Woodpeckers were all there, and there were some nice occasions to photograph each of them. Eastern Bluebird Eastern Towhee Pine Warbler Wild Turkey Here's a list of species we saw this morning: Wild Turkey 6 ...