outdoor photography

Sunrise over Miami Canon Powershot G7 X Sunday I went with some friends on a pelagic trip out to Miami.  I've never birded  in Miami-Dade County before, so I was hoping for some lifers.  We went out on Roberto Torres' boat, the Xenia V, out of the Black Point Marina, and he was fantastic.  He has a great boat, he knows what he's doing, and he's a birder who's as interested in the birds as we are.  It's a great combination. You can see his summary of our trip here . Royal Terns Near the Jetty We had west winds all day, though, so birds were sparse.  We didn't see a single shearwater the whole day, and we saw only a handful of Sooty Terns--no Bridled Terns, noddies or tropicbirds.  We did see a few jaegers though: one Pomarine Jaeger, one Long-tailed Jaeger, one other jaeger flying with it that was likely also a Long-tailed Jaeger (though we didn't get a good enough look to rule out Parasitic Jaeger definitively). White-crowned P...

Sunrise Over the Atlantic Ocean Last week I went on a pelagic trip into the Atlantic Ocean. We left Ponce Inlet at 4 am in search of a sunrise and some pelagic birds. We were not disappointed. The sunrise was spectacular, and we had a chance to see some nice pelagic birds. We didn't see anything rare, but it was fun nonetheless. Cory's Shearwater Great Shearwater Audubon's Shearwater Shortly after sunrise, we saw our first pelagic bird--a Cory's Shearwater. Soon we were in the midst of the Gulf Stream (about 40 miles off shore), and we began to see more Cory's Shearwaters (a couple were Scopoli type), one Great Shearwater, several Audubon Shearwaters, and both Sooty and Bridled Terns. We had at least one Parasitic Jaeger (my only lifer on the day), one likely Pomarine Jaeger, and a few Brown Boobies. Sooty Tern Bridled Tern We went out 65 miles to the western edge of a canyon that was about 2,500 ft deep about half way across the Gulf...

Cory's Shearwater On September 16th I went on my first trip out into the Atlantic Ocean to find pelagic birds. Yes, pelagic birds--those are birds that are normally out at sea, and some of them you haven't much of a prayer of seeing unless you go out there.  I went on a boat with about 50 other people, and we had a great time.  From what I've been told, we didn't see as many birds as are normally seen in September, but most everything I saw was new to me, and I went home with 9 life birds--birds I've never seen before in my entire life. I'm still learning about these birds, but I think I have all the identifications right. Cory's Shearwater The first birds we saw were Shearwaters.  We saw three species: Audubon's, Cory's and Great Shearwaters.  Most of what we saw were Cory's.  In fact they were the stars of the day.  We saw at least 30 of them, but only two Audubon's and one Great Shearwater. Cory's Shearwater Great S...