March
11
Wednesday
3011
photos
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I
awoke on the final day of my Florida Safari and leisurely prepared for
my last day of shooting in the Sunshine State. Gatorland —
my
last stop on this tour —
didn’t open till 9am for the general public,
and 7:30am for photographers (who paid extra to come early and stay
late), and I had plenty of time to get there by 7:30, since it was only
a few blocks away. The forecast was for 84-degree weather, so for
the first time I left my dog in the air-conditioned hotel rather than
locking her in the car with the windows and sunroof open.
It wasn’t until I arrived at Gatorland that I realized I had forgot to
turn my watch ahead an hour. Instead of only 15 minutes late, I
was an hour and 15 minutes late, and the park would soon be open to the
general public. I paid extra to get in 15 minutes early anyway,
and also paid the extra fee so I could stay late (till 7:30pm rather
than 5pm).
Gatorland turned out to be spectacular.
Unlike at the Venice Rookery and the Anhinga Trail, where the birds
nest some distance away, at Gatorland many of the nests are within 10
or 20 feet of the boardwalk —
and these are wild birds,
just as at
the other sites. They come here to nest because the alligators
and crocodiles keep other predators away from the bird nests, without
being able to predate on the nests themselves.
Great egrets with full breeding plumes were everywhere. The
backgrounds did tend to be busy, however. I started out by
experimented with
some abstract images featuring bird plumes in front of a colored
background:
Great Egret
Plumes.
600mm at f/11. 1/250 sec at ISO 100.
Fill flash on full power (+3).
If I’d
had enough patience, I’m sure I would have gotten acceptable
images of the birds showing both their plumes and their head in focus,
though I was too impatient and had to settle for in-focus plumes and an
out-of-focus head in the background, to produce another abstract image:
Great Egreat at
Gatorland.
600mm at f/8. 1/500 sec at ISO 100.
No flash.
Though
the above images were shot at 600mm, at Gatorland it’s
good to also have a 70-200mm lens on hand, and indeed I ended up using
mine quite extensively, both for static birds close by and also for some
flight shots. I don’t
think I used any focal length between 200mm and 600mm at all that day.
Though I
had seen a few Cattle Egrets here and there on my tour (at the library
in Cape Coral while looking for Burrowing Owls, and also a few in
Venice), I was pleased to find a colorful individual here at Gatorland,
who posed for me in full sunlight at close range:
Cattle Egret at
Gatorland.
200mm at f/8. 1/640 at ISO 160.
Flash on high-speed sync at full power (+3).
I’m not familiar enough with this species to know whether this is the
bird’s "full breeding plumage", but I can say that it was much more
colorful than any of the cattle egrets I had seen so far on this trip.
Cattle Egret at
Gatorland.
200mm at f/8. 1/640 sec at ISO 160.
Flash on high-speed sync at full power (+3).
Even the Snowy Egrets had more color at Gatorland. Though I’ve
often seen snowies in the Carolinas, they always had a yellow cere (the fleshy area at the base
of the beak), so
I was surprised to find that in the breeding condition they sport a
reddish or orange cere:
Snowy Egret at
Gatorland.
600mm at f/7.1. 1/500 sec at ISO 100.
Flash on high-speed sync at full power (+3).
Similarly, the Great Egrets, who I had always seen with a yellow cere,
at Gatorland had green ceres to denote their breeding state:
Two-headed Great
Egret (!).
150mm at f/9. 1/640 sec at ISO 160.
Flash on high-speed sync at full power (+3).
Unlike anywhere else I’d been in the past two weeks, at Gatorland I was
able, several times, to photograph Great Egrets mating in the nest:
Great Egrets
Mating in Nest.
840mm at f/11. 1/200 sec at ISO 100.
No flash.
Some of the nests even had chicks. Below you can see an adult
great egret in the foreground, with several other adults in other nests
in the background, and a chick curled up in the near nest:
Great Egret Adult
and Chick.
840mm at f/11. 1/200 sec at ISO 100.
Fill flash on full power (+3).
Though this particular nest wasn’t
terribly close to the boardwalk, at 840mm I was able to get a
surprisingly detailed image of the chick, even at only 1/200 sec:
Great Egret Chick
at Gatorland.
840mm at f/11. 1/200 sec at ISO 100.
Fill flash on full power (+3).
Later in
the day, while I was experimenting with some "rim-lighting" images
(back-lit), I shot this pair engaging in some courtship behavior
involving snapping at each other with their beaks; unfortunately, some
motion blur was evident even at 1/800 sec:
Great Egrets at
Gatorland.
600mm at f/7.1. 1/800 sec at ISO 1000.
No flash.
Though I typically avoid back-lit situations (except for silhouettes),
with birds having light, fluffy plumage you can sometimes get
interesting effects, such as "rim lighting", where the light shines
through the outer rim of the bird’s plumage:
Great Egrets at
Gatorland.
600mm at f/7.1. 1/800 sec at ISO 640.
No flash.
Like Venice, Gatorland can produce very nice background effects in the
water. In the image below, though I’m mostly getting white and
blue from the sky, I liked the brown reflection (from a portion of the
boardwalk or the observation tower, probably) that cut through a
portion of the image, and almost matched the rusty color of the
gallinule’s dorsal wing feathers:
Common Gallinule
at Gatorland.
600mm at f/7.1. 1/160 sec at ISO 100.
No flash.
Of course, Gatorland has more than just birds —
they also
have a few gators:
Gator in
Gatorland.
600mm at f/5.6. 1/250 sec at ISO 125.
No flash.
Notice how, though the image below is of the same individual shot only
a few seconds later than the image above, the colors in the water have
changed dramatically as my angle has changed:
Gator in
Gatorland.
600mm at f/5.6. 1/250 at ISO 125.
No flash.
Other birds besides herons and egrets nest at Gatorland. The
Boat-tailed Grackles were very common. Below is a female grackle
who had recently put on a show by trying to chase off a Great Egret
who made the mistake of perching in "her" bush:
Female
Boat-tailed Grackle.
840mm wide open (f/5.6). 1/250 at ISO 125.
No flash.
Below is a different individual of this species, sitting in a hanging
nest, mere feet from the boardwalk:
Female Grackle in
Nest.
840mm at f/9. 1/200 sec at ISO 100.
Fill flash on full power (+3).
I was informed by the owner of Gatorland that the nesting season there
had only just begun, and that at points further to the north (such as
at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm), it would not begin for a few
weeks yet. This is why I was seeing so many birds in breeding
plumage here; of all the sites I had visited in Florida these past two
weeks, Gatorland was the northermost.
Whatever the reason, I was very pleased to find Gatorland to be so
productive. I remarked to one of the other photographers (only
half-jokingly) that, had I stopped at Gatorland first, I might not have
gone on to any of the other sites on my itinerary. I tremble to
think what this place might be like in a few weeks, when more birds are
in breeding state. For points this far north, mid-to-late March
may
well be be a better time to visit than late February / early
March.
I was content to have come at all.
But Gatorland had one more treat in store for me: the Roseate Spoonbill.
I thought it was particularly fitting that I should end my Florida
Safari photographing the one bird species that I had most wanted to see
—
and had seen the least of —
during my trip. And not just to
photograph it, but to photograph it in good light, at close range, on
natural perches and with colorful backgrounds.
Below are two spoonbills rubbing beaks (or what I call
"spoonbill-spooning"), a form of courtship in this species:
Spoonbills
Spooning.
600mm at f/7.1. 1/800 sec at ISO 250.
No flash.
Those spoon-shaped beaks may look a bit silly, but I’m
sure that when this bird
spreads its exquisite wings, angels in heaven turn green with envy:
Roseate Spoonbill
at Gatorland.
600mm at f/7.1. 1/500 sec at ISO 125.
No flash.
For the shot below, the bird was a bit too far away for me to crop as
close as in the images above, so I made it into a wider shot, and
turned up the blue in the sky behind it:
Roseate Spoonbill
at Gatorland.
600mm at f/7.1. 1/500 sec at ISO 125.
No flash.
Even in a busy scene with a poorly-blurred background, such a stunning
bird makes the image worth keeping:
Roseate Spoonbill
in Vacated Egret Nest.
840mm at f/7.1. 1/500 sec at ISO 125.
No flash.
In the image above, the bird is actually standing in an old Great Egret
nest. The spoonbills repeatedly investigated the egret nest that
day. Below you can see one of the spoonbills with a stick in its
beak, which I’d assume is a strong suggestion of nest-building
instincts:
Roseate Spoonbill
at Gatorland.
600mm at f/7.1. 1/500 sec at ISO 125.
No flash.
If I
remember correctly, the owner of Gatorland
said that the spoonbills hadn’t yet successfully nested at Gatorland,
but he was hoping they would soon. Although I didn’t ask him, I’m
wondering if he’d consider opening a branch in North Carolina —
and
bringing the spoonbills with him.
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