outdoor photography

Great Horned Owl Yesterday I drove out to the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive before work.  I got there before 6:30 so that I'd have a couple hours to see what I could find.  I'm headed to Mexico for a week later on today, so I figured it would be good to have one last check of the drive before leaving. It was a pretty fun time, even if I wish it could have been longer. Solitary Sandpiper A Black Tern and an Upland Sandpiper were seen during the week, so those were the birds I was hoping for.  But I had no luck finding those.  However, there are still lots of shorebirds around the sod fields--most of them were on the west end by Canal Rd, so I had to look straight towards the sun to see them. Presentable photos were impossible, but there was a Stilt Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, at least 10 Pectoral Sandpipers and Least Sandpipers, and several Solitary Sandpipers, Greater Yellowlegs and Lesser Yellowlegs. Prairie Warbler Warblers are also coming back. I sa...

Solitary Sandpiper I lamented earlier today that the most interesting thing I found to photograph this morning was a Blue Jay . Well, I made a phone call this afternoon and walked outside during the call, which I often do for calls that do not require me to write anything down.  The summer rains have not yet come, and the lake level is very low, leaving beautiful, mucky, wet soil.  Well, I don't think it's beautiful, but this Solitary Sandpiper apparently did.  He was having a blast foraging while I was on the phone.  So as soon as I got off the phone, I ran back in, got my camera, and spent about 5 minutes photographing him in terrible light (around 2:30pm)--he's the first I've seen here.  I had to over-expose by about a stop to get even this shot, but I'll take it.  I also heard and then saw a Killdeer that also was here, and a Snowy Egret flew by. With the Solitary Sandpiper sighting, my species count for my office area rose to 65. So my birding d...