Favourite photos

This time last year I had recently returned from a photographic expedition to Florida. If anyone is interested the relevant blog posts/trip report starts here. Likely not, but those were the days. I've been taking solace in reminding myself of some of the great trips I've been on, the wonderful birds I've seen and the fun I had seeing them. Although I'm marooned in Wanstead at the moment looking back at these photographic memories never fails to raise a smile and I am so glad I documented them all. 

There are some photos that I consider a cut above. Photos that I will always remember taking, photos that made me smile at the time, that perhaps even elicited a giggle. I just found one that I think sits very near the top of my list of all-time favourite photos. It's not a Wheatear. It's not any kind of pin sharp bird. It's not a glorious sunset from an epic location. It's not artistic or technically clever in any way. In fact I would go so far as to say that is is plain stupid. It's not even taken with a proper camera, it's simply a snap from my phone. I don't recall ever having posted it, or if I have I can't find it. But even if I did it is one of those photos where the quality easily merits a repeat.

It is Snuffi. Snuffi is a small and partially threadbare Panther. Many of my favourite photos involve Snuffi. He comes with me on every trip, and it is essential that he has his photo taken in front of landmarks and so on, or at least somewhere readily identifiable as being "there". If you have followed this blog for any length of time you will no doubt have seen him pop up before, usually at the very end of trip reports. You have probably been kind enough not to mention it. That a middle-aged man could have such an attachment to a small cuddly toy is best left to professionals, but here is a photo from that trip to Florida. I remember passing the sign and then stopping the car and turning back once my feeble brain had processed the possibility that the nice clear stretch of road afforded. I am very glad that I did as in my book this is one of the all-time greats.

Florida IV - Day 4 and Trip List

Day 4

Final Day! The beers had not too bad an effect, so once again I found myself at Bunche Beach at sunrise. Same deal as the prior day, however the tide was different by an hour and it simply was not as good as the ideal conditions simply did not last as long before the sun became too harsh. Nonetheless I got a few more images - given how many I posted from the prior day I'll mostly skip over these. Suffice to say that I had another fun couple of hours.

After a repeat of the breakfast and packing routine from the previous day I headed back across the Florida Panhandle, taking a different route through the upper Everglades - taking instead the road south, Route 29,that bisects the two main east-west crossings. I am glad that I did, it was a very quiet drive through the Fakahatchee Preserve and I was able to stop in numerous places for roadside birding which added Crested Caracara to the trip list. With time running out I made a short diversion to the Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk. This was quite quiet in the middle of the day, but several Barred Owls were calling, and there was a large Alligator in the pond at the very end as well as a Pileated Woodpecker.

I had one final look at the Snail Kites at the small bend near Cooperstown and mid-afternoon handed in my rental car at Miami International for the early evening overnight flight back to London and my lovely desk at Canary Wharf. It had been another great trip with a good balance between birding and photography.

Trip List

Florida IV - Day 3, Naples Botanical Garden

Day 3 - Afternoon

After returning to my hotel and getting cleaned up, I spent the rest of the morning having a leisurely breakfast at the local Denny's and packing up. The early afternoon was then spent shopping for my kids at the Miramar Outlet Mall before once again I could concentrate on birding. I drove down to Naples and found my way to the Botanic Garden - tropical plants are another hobby of mine and I had missed out on Fairchild/Montgomery yet again. In short it was lovely if you like that kind of thing, and as ever I combined the two hobbies and essentially birded my way around the gardens. I managed a solid 25 species, including quite a few that were new for the trip list including Ring-necked Duck, Downy Woodpecker, Common Yellowthroat by the lake and Common Ground Dove feeding on the paths. If you have an afternoon it is very pleasant place to while away a couple of hours. Other species seen can be seen on the eBird checklist here.

Tri-colored Heron

A section of Philodendron. I think this one could be "Burle Marx", named after a famous Brazilian plantsman, with the one above being "gloriosum"

After this I went shopping for two essentials. 1) Beer and 2) something to BBQ. I am mostly vegetarian these days, but when in America.... With my evening sorted I drove back to Estero Boulevard and checked into my new hotel, and with the sun setting I plonked myself in a deckchair on the beach and happily watched the sun set over the Gulf whilst swigging a cold beer. The beachfront BBQ was then fired up and I finished the day exactly as I had intended - sat on warm sand listening to the waves and having some nice food and more beer. It's a wrap!

Florida IV - Day 3, Part 3 - Smaller waders

Day 3, smaller waders

What, you're still here? And you want more?? Well, if you insist I suppose. Ha! I know you don't and I'm afraid that cuts no ice at all. Here are a selection of the smaller waders on Bunche Beach...

Semipalmated Plover

Wilson's Plover. A much beefier bird than the others.

Least Sandpiper

Western Sandpiper

Piping Plover

Sanderling

Turnstone

Florida IV - Day 3, Part 2 - Larger waders

Day 2, larger waders

This post is the second one about a three hour session on Bunche Beach at Fort Myers on the Gulf Coast in Florida. It is an exceptionally good location for wader photography, the best I have found, but only with very careful planning. That means checking tide times and the weather. I've got this wrong just once and it won't happen again. People after words rather than photographs should probably click their "back" button about now. People who want to look at six subtly different images of Marbled Godwit, by all means continue... There will be a third post on smaller waders - the Peeps as they're known. 

Willet

Short-billed Dowitcher

Grey Plover

Marbled Godwit

Florida IV - Day 3 - Part 1

Day 3 - Part 1

Bunche Beach. 5am and the conditions are perfect. Perfect tide, perfect light. As the sun comes up so the water recedes exposing the mudflats and sandbars. I have the place to myself, there is literally nobody here at all. The first bird I see is a Great Blue Heron, a sentinel against the mirror of the water. An Osprey is in a dead tree right on the beach. All is as I remember it. 

I'd been here before, to this exact spot and for this exact purpose - wader photography. The beach runs east west, and the sun comes up over the mangroves and lights the sand and the shallows in pure gold. If you time it right you literally don't know where to point the camera. Carry a spare battery if you need it, and extra memory cards. Don't hold back, this is what digital cameras are made for. And don't worry about getting wet, sandy and muddy either, or getting your camera gear a bit dirty. It can all be washed or brushed off. I used my Canon 1DX, the 500mm F4 IS mkII, sometimes the 1.4x mkIII converter, and then a gimbal head on a skimmer pod. I probably had the lens off the support as much as on, and I am still finding sand in the camera six months later!

Get on your belly and push!

Here you can see some of the exposed sandbars after a successful session

Below are a few of the non-wader images - a small minority! There are two more much much longer posts in the pipeline with Willet, Short-billed Dowitcher, Grey Plover, Marbled Godwit, Semipalmated Plover, Western Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Wilson's Plover and Piping Plover. Sorry.

Great Blue Heron

Osprey

Caspian Tern

Forster's Tern

Cabot's Tern