outdoor photography

Royal Tern Yesterday morning I arrived in Cocoa at 5am for the Cocoa Christmas Bird Count.  This is my second year participating, and it's always a lot of fun.  We were out from about 6:30am to 6:30pm, counting all the birds we could find our area.  Easily the biggest highlights for me were seeing a White-winged Scoter, the first I've seen in Florida, and a Common Loon, the first for me this year in Florida. We saw about 18,000 scaup, and while most all of them were Lesser Scaup, I found one Greater Scaup in my photos among the rafts of Lessers. There were also huge numbers of Laughing and Ring-billed Gulls, American Robins and Yellow-rumped Warblers.  But we also saw several species that are unusual for that area, even though they're common elsewhere.  In particular, our group was excited to see Tufted Titmice and a couple House Finches.  Other highlights for me were seeing 4 Painted Buntings, 8 Horned Grebes, 2 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, 1 Northern H...

Indigo Bunting Yesterday the biggest highlight at Mead Gardens was seeing a Clay-colored Sparrow.  Other than that, it was pretty slow birding.  But we did see some other fun things.  Indigo Buntings are far less spectacular in the fall, but they are still quite attractive birds. Indigo Bunting This Carolina Wren is showing off some white spots on its rump.  I believe this is some sort of display, though sometimes these spots appear when they are preening.  This bird flew up to this perch after some other buntings went by, so perhaps in this instance it a display.  I don't see these white spots on Carolina Wrens very often, and this is the first time I have been able to get a photo that shows them nicely.    Carolina Wren And this hummingbird was dancing around the lower leaves of a Cypress Tree by the lake.  When she was flying, she was severely back lit, and the photos just weren't very attractive.  But she perched f...