Early this morning I eagerly sped my way up route 75 to Cape Coral in hopes of getting some usable burrowing owl photos.  I was not disappointed:


My first stop was the library, where I found three active nest sites.  Although the two nests I worked last night were still active, the birds at those nests didn’t come fully out into the open.  However, a group of serious bird photographers from Sweden pointed out a nest nearby that I’d overlooked, and here I got some great shots as the birds came out of their burrow and spent some time above ground, fully out in the open.  (And just as an aside, I did try to impress my new Swedish friends with my knowledge of Swedish heavy metal, but was somewhat chagrined when they informed me that the band Nightwish was actually from Finland, not Sweden.  Drat!)

In mid-morning I left the library to survey a few of the other sites I’d found last year.  The first was the BMX track, where last year I’d found both owls and an active bald eagle nest.  This year I found neither.  I then drove toward city hall.  West of city hall I’d found a great site near a large baptist church, where I got my very best burrowing owl photos from last year.  This year I found two active nests here, and saw both adults from both nests.  I didn’t get any great shots of them, but just knowing that these sites are still active is useful, because I may be able to get some shots here sometime over the next couple of days.

     Around noon I took a cooler full of thawed shrimp ($30 from the bait store in Fort Myers Beach) and my dog to Little Estero Lagoon, where I’d had a truly excellent time last year.  The site is depicted in the map below. 

This site is extremely well-known to bird photographers, despite being extremely inconvenient to access.  All of the photographers I know park at the strip mall across from the Holiday Inn in Fort Myers Beach when visiting this site.  The site offers no dedicated parking, and indeed has no official access route; the only way to access the site is, apparently, to trespass on one of the properties lying between the highway and the park.  The safest bet seems to be walking through the Holiday Inn parking lot, which I saw a number of visitors doing.  It’s a real shame that visitors to this prime birding location have to resort to such practices, but there seems to be no other safe alternative.

    At the back-left corner of the Holiday Inn’s parking lot is the trail leading to the lagoon.  Walking south along this trail takes you to the beach where the action typically is.  Today I arrived at high tide: the tidepools were enormous (compared to last year).  Unfortunately, there were barely any birds when I arrived.  This may simply be an artefact of noon-time birding.  In the past I always birded this site in the morning and left around noon. 
    At one tidepool I was glad to find a couple of egrets.  Using the shrimp I was  able to get a snowy egret to come over to my side of the tidepool and hang out with me for a (long) while.  At first s/he took the shrimps and ate them, but after a while the bird seemed to realize they weren’t live, because it would pick them up and then simply drop them.  A white ibis came over and ate those that the snowy wouldn’t eat.  A ruddy turnstone then came and picked at those that the ibis missed.  A tricolored showed up, but wasn’t interested in me or my expensive box of shrimp.  At one point an osprey dove into the tidepool and caught a decent-sized fish.  That’s pretty much the extent of the birding activity I saw there.  I was restricted to the landward side of the tidepool because signs prohibit taking dogs past a certain line (to protect the birds), and this limited my photographic opportunities because the sun wasn’t in the best position at that point (many shots were backlit and therefore required strong flash).  At one point I tied up Kelsey to a post some distance away so the birds wouldn’t be frightened of her, but then an extremely elderly man decided she was a stray dog and tried (as I watched from a distance) to take her to the Humane Society.  I decided to tie her up closer to me so I could keep a better eye on her (and the local citizenry).

Snowy egret taking my shrimp bait.  This is only the second time I’ve used bait
to attract birds in Florida.  Just as last time, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference
in my photographic opportunities.  I don’t think I’ll bother trying it again.
(1/300sec 150mm f/11 ISO100)

    In mid-afternoon I took Kelsey to the dog park next to Lovers’ Key, and here is where, to put it bluntly, the you-know-what hit the fan.  Although there were probably 80 or 100 people here yesterday, today there were only a handful (probably because of the forecast for severe weather, which never actually materialized).  By sheer luck I also happened to arrive just as high tide was turning.  As the water receded, shorebirds and waders began to show up.  Because there were only a few dogs to chase them, they mostly stayed in the general vicinity (those that got chased just flew to another section of the strip).  The numbers weren’t astronomical, but the variety, the proximity, and the scenery (mud flats) made for truly excellent shooting (on my belly, as always).  At one point I got a pair of oystercatchers that soon left, then came back later.  The climax was the reddish egret that showed up just before dusk and hung out till after dark (see below).  Unfortunately, the light was very dim and the bird was moving quickly, so I had to resort to ISO1600, which I consider the upper limit for my camera. 

CLICK TO ZOOM

Reddish egret at the dog park.
Not a great photo, but a bird I was very happy to see.  The dim light
and need to freeze the action necessitated use of ISO1600.
(1/1000sec 600mm f/4 ISO1600)

Other species I encountered included various sandpipers and plovers, ospreys, willets, a tricolored heron, and several brown pelicans that proceeded to dive for fish right in front of the strip.
    Normally I would hesitate to recommend a dog park to hopeful birders, but after this afternoon’s experience I have to re-classify this site as at least a standby for those who strike out at nearby sites.  In the future, whenever the weather inhibits people and dogs from visiting this site, I’ll strongly consider heading here to pursue photographic opportunities.