outdoor photography

Wood Duck Yesterday my father and I went to Mead Gardens hoping to find migrants.  It was strangely and eerily quiet, though.  Resident and breeding birds were there in abundance--Wood Ducks were there, which is always nice; Carolina Wrens were seemingly everywhere, and in a couple places you could see fledglings.  Northern Parulas and Common Yellowthroats were frequently heard and seen.  But it was a while before we actually saw birds that were just passing through.  We saw one Northern Waterthrush, one Black-throated Blue Warbler and one American Redstart.  So we turned out attention to some other fine friends.   A Box Turtle was out in beautiful colors and a Crab-like Spiny Orbweaver spun a web where we could frustrate ourselves trying to get a picture in a slight breeze.  As we were leaving a friend told me that a White-winged Dove was over by the feeders, so we marched back to get photos of this interesting species.  White-winged Dov...

White-winged Dove Yesterday morning I had to take my car to CarMax get the breaks fixed.  I had an early morning meeting so I also had a little time to kill.  So I dropped by the nearest birding hotspot I could find at Barber Park.  It's a pretty little park just west of rte 436 between rtes 528 and 408.  I don't think it's a place I would make a point to visit again, but the park gave me some better photos of White-winged Doves and Eurasian Collared Doves. Neither of these birds technically belong here.   White-winged Doves are a western bird, but they were introduced into south Florida years ago, and they've been steadily moving north ever since.  Eurasian Collared Doves are European, but they were introduced into the Bahamas, and now they can be been found throughout the southern U.S. White-winged Dove Eurasian Collared Dove Eurasian Collared Dove

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher This morning I went early to my office area and had a pretty wonderful time birding.  I found two species that I had not seen at my office before today: a Northern Flicker and a White-winged Dove.  The latter was quite surprising for me. A Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher came out to see me and so did a Northern Parula.  These guys are hard to photograph, but a couple I took today came out. Common Grackle Northern Parula Northern Parula White-winged Dove Below is a complete list of the 24 species I found today; my total number of species seen in my office area rose to 61. Wood Duck 4 Anhinga 1 Great Egret 1 White Ibis 1 Osprey 1 Common Gallinule 3 Rock Pigeon 2 White-winged Dove 1 Mourning Dove 3 Red-bellied Woodpecker 2 Downy Woodpecker 1 Northern Flicker 1 Blue Jay 3 Fish Crow 5 Carolina Wren 1 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2 Gray Catbird 1 Northern Mockingbird 2 Brown Thrasher 3 Cedar Waxwing 10 Norther...