While the blog started as a record of my backyard garden and birds, it quickly grew as I discovered bird photography. This page contains images taken “beyond the backyard” during my travels around Central Florida (and beyond!)
October 23, 2013 - This summer at Lake Morton, I amused myself while on swan nest-watch by taking pictures of all the ducks and geese as they bathed in the lake. Early mornings seem to be best for bathtime. The birds are such fun to watch as they splash around, flapping their wings back and forth. Besides, it’s fun […]
October 21, 2013 - This weekend I had the rare opportunity to visit the Circle B Bar Reserve in the afternoon. I’ve been there dozens of times in the morning, but I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen the sun set over the marshes. It’s always disconcerting to see the dramatically different afternoon […]
October 16, 2013 - Down by my grandfather’s place is a wonderful beach known in our family as the “Shell Beach.” As children my cousins and I played there, gathering shells and other treasures of the ocean. It remains a special place, not just for the shells but for the beautiful beach sunrise vistas. I took these last May […]
October 14, 2013 - The winter birds are returning to the Circle B Bar Reserve! My dad and I had a great walk yesterday morning. We saw our first-of-fall Eastern Phoebes, Gray Catbirds, Marsh Wrens, and a surprise flock of American White Pelicans flying over the marsh. It was fun to welcome our birdy friends back to the Sunshine […]
October 9, 2013 - After several years of drooling over my friends’ images, I finally made it out to Lake Jesup for the wildflowers this year. Wow!!! I found fields of yellow flowers under the rainbow! It was just amazing! For those not familiar with the area, Lake Jesup is a large lake northeast of Orlando, close to Sanford. […]
October 7, 2013 - Yesterday I finally made it out for a fall walk at the Circle B Bar Reserve. I haven’t been there in months! It felt great to get back out on the trails. I love photographing along the Heron Hideout trail early in the morning on these early fall days. The light is golden and gorgeous, […]
October 3, 2013 - I received some good news yesterday. The Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program‘s 2014 calendar will again feature one of my images. They picked one of my favorite sunrise shots from the Circle B Bar Reserve. I love how the sky reflects in the water as the sun peeks out through the clouds. Look for […]
September 25, 2013 - Birding is starting to pick up again after a long hot summer. The first day of fall was officially on September 22, although temperatures in Florida continue well into the upper 80s and 90s. But there’s a hope in sight: the lows are forecast to dip into the 60s this week! I’ve been working crazy […]
September 23, 2013 - A few weeks ago I spent a Saturday morning at Bok Tower, a wonderful garden in Lake Wales, Florida. It was architected by Frederick Law Olmstead and dedicated by President Coolidge in 1929. The tower itself is fun to photograph, but what attracted me was the possibility of migrant warblers. I seem to find a […]
September 21, 2013 - There were lots of fun birds to photograph on my last visit to Lake Morton. Besides the juvenile swans, there was a family of baby Limpkins, as well as the regular “menagerie” of ducks and geese. Early mornings are always good for bath shots! So here’s some more from Lake Morton… A pair of Black-necked […]
September 19, 2013 - Seven of our Mute Swan Cygnets returned to Lake Morton last week. Regular readers of my blog may recall my springtime posts about the cute little cygnets, so adorable as they sat in their nests with Mom on the day that they hatched. I finally got to see a cygnet ride on Mom’s back this […]
September 17, 2013 - Two weeks ago I went out in search of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducklings at Viera Wetlands. Usually the wetlands are quiet during the summertime, and it’s a great place to stay in your air-conditioned car while you wait for birding action. But on this visit, I quickly found several families of the Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, and their cuteness […]
September 15, 2013 - While at Fort De Soto over Labor Day weekend, I captured a fun sequence of images. The Sandwich Terns were in a feeding frenzy over the ocean. I tried to photograph them as they grabbed their fish from the ocean. One grabbed a huge fish, dropped it in mid-air, then dove and caught it […]
September 14, 2013 - I had such a good time photographing the terns and gulls in their feeding frenzy at Fort De Soto over Labor Day weekend. I got to North Beach just after sunrise. The feeding frenzy from the night before continued as hundreds of birds dove into the waves and pulled out their breakfasts. There were so […]
September 12, 2013 - We stayed the night at the beach over Labor Day weekend, and I enjoyed the opportunity to shoot sunrise at Fort De Soto without having to drive for two hours! Except I was dismayed to arrive and find that the park is more strictly enforcing its hours. There was a “do not enter” sign that […]
September 10, 2013 - Although it’s still really hot outside, fall migration is underway, and the shorebirds are returning to Florida’s beaches. Most of our shorebirds fly to places like Alaska and northern Canada to breed. They leave in May looking all spiffy in their breeding plumage, fly to their breeding grounds, raise their kids, and return to Florida […]
September 8, 2013 - Rich and I did an overnight trip to Fort De Soto over Labor Day weekend. I got to do one of my favorite things: photograph sunset at Fort De Soto’s North Beach. It’s so beautiful there. I love the white beach and the unspoiled coastline. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought it […]
August 26, 2013 - I visited Butterfly World in late May when my hubby Rich and I visited South Florida for a few days to photograph the Burrowing Owls. I’d been wanting to visit Butterfly World ever since seeing Jamie Felton’s incredible image of a butterfly landing on a hummingbird’s head. The place certainly didn’t disappoint. There were hundreds […]
August 21, 2013 - I recently dusted off my bird life list, organizing it by species and counting only American Birding Association countable species. Like most birders, I enjoy keeping track of the birds I’ve seen, but as a bird photographer, I only count the birds that I’ve photographed. The ABA has documented 976 species in North America. About […]
August 19, 2013 - This weekend I returned to the Black Skimmer colony at Indian Rocks Beach. It’s been five weeks now since the babies hatched, and three weeks since I photographed them as adorable two-week-olds. I figured they were flying and learning to skim by now, so I headed over in the morning when the sun best illuminates […]
August 17, 2013 - It’s been quite a while since I last visited Orlando Wetlands Park, so when my friend Michael Libbe suggested that we go there for sunrise, I was excited to go back. Summer days at Orlando Wetlands Park are very hot, but there was a nice breeze to keep us comfortable. We arrived a good half […]
August 15, 2013 - I hope you’re not tired of reading about the Black Skimmers yet, because today’s post brings you more from Indian Rocks Beach! One of my goals for this summer was to capture the interaction between skimmers in mid-air during the nesting season. I like to call these interactions “skimmer skirmishes,” when two adults take to […]
August 13, 2013 - Several weeks ago, I returned to the Black Skimmer colony at Indian Rocks Beach to photograph the two-week old Black Skimmers. The little guys had grown up quite a bit since I photographed them as newborns. Some would say that the two-week old Black Skimmers are less cute than when they were tiny babies, but […]
August 11, 2013 - I returned to the Black Skimmer colony two weeks ago to check on the babies. It had been two weeks since I was there to photograph the day-old chicks, and I knew the babies had grown a lot. I was hoping to catch them in that big-kid-but-not-yet-teenager stage, and I succeeded! I’ll have more pictures […]
August 9, 2013 - It’s been a crazy long week, so I’ll pull out some images from our trip to the beach in May. I sure wish I was there tonight! When Rich and I went to South Florida to visit the Burrowing Owls, we stopped at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center for Rich to get his turtle fix. That […]
August 4, 2013 - The weekend after I returned from Maine, my dad and I drove to Indian Rocks Beach to check on the Black Skimmer colony. We found that most of the eggs laid after Tropical Storm Andrea had hatched, and the colony was full of tiny newborn Black Skimmer chicks. They are so cute!! My friend Debbie […]
July 31, 2013 - Cuteness alert! The Black Skimmer colony at Indian Rocks Beach was doing very well in the week before I left for Maine. The birds were again on eggs after Tropical Storm Andrea wiped out most of their colony. These birds are more stubborn than bad weather. A few surviving chicks from the first batch stumbled […]
July 28, 2013 - On our way back from Maine, Rich and I stopped at Sandy Point State Park. It’s on the southern end of an island about an hour north of Boston. My objective was Piping Plovers, who nest in the area. We have Piping Plovers in Florida during migration, but I haven’t had such good luck finding […]
July 26, 2013 - During our recent trip to Maine, Rich amused himself with his iPhone, taking pictures of me doing silly things with the camera. I told him he needed to write a guest blog post after we got home! At first he thought I was kidding, but then he started to like the idea. He did tease […]
July 24, 2013 - Ever since my six-grade class did a study of marine biology with a video series called The Voyage of the Mimi, I’ve been interested in whales. The Mimi focused specifically on humpback whales, some of the largest whales in the ocean. So when Rich and I planned our vacation to Maine, I scheduled a whale-watching […]
July 22, 2013 - Rich and I are both interested in astronomy, so we were excited to go to Maine where there is so little light pollution. Part of the reason we rented a cottage at Seaside Cottages was the easy access to a little strip of beach on the western side of Mount Desert Island. We spent several […]
July 20, 2013 - I think I saw a few pigs fly by the summit of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park as Rich and I stood watching the sunrise. Yes, you read that correctly. Rich joined me for sunrise during our recent trip to Maine! It was especially nice of him because sunrise that morning was at 4:55am. […]
July 13, 2013 - During my recent trip to Maine I had the great privilege to visit a breeding colony of Atlantic Puffins on Machias Seal Island. Puffins are pelagic birds, meaning that they live their lives out on the open ocean. They only come to land to breed and raise their young. Can you image living your entire […]
July 11, 2013 - Rich and I just returned from an amazing week-and-a-half trip to Maine. If you like rugged coastline, Atlantic Puffins, picturesque lighthouses and bridges, fog, sunrises, and stars, then stay tuned to my blog for the next few weeks. I have plenty of adventures to share! :) First we visited Acadia National Park, located on Mount […]
July 10, 2013 - This is my last post on my Burrowing Owl nest-watching this spring. I was so lucky to get to monitor the growth of a family of five (reduced to four) Burrowing Owls. On my last visit, they waved goodbye and flew off… The oldest two babies were pretty proficient fliers. They flew off pretty early in […]
July 8, 2013 - My Week Four visit to my Burrowing Owl nest was short and sweet. I got there around 8:30 in the morning, and the owls were sleepy and not very active. They were adorable as they posed at their burrow, but they didn’t do much. Their actions made me suspect that they were already flight-worthy, though… […]
July 6, 2013 - In my last post about the Burrowing Owls I wrote that my still shots do not best represent the antics of the owlets. The stills capture expressions pretty well, but to really explain how it is that I can sit watching these birds for hours on end, I need video. Luckily my DSLR has video, […]
July 4, 2013 - This post continues my story of the baby Burrowing Owls that I observed this spring. I hope you’re not getting tired of cute little owlets! On my previous visits to the burrow, I was a little surprised not to see food being brought in for the owlets. Surely they were not feeding themselves yet, as […]
July 2, 2013 - I returned to my Burrowing Owl nest six days after first seeing Burrowing Owlets. It’s amazing how fast they grow! On my first visit, I thought I saw five babies. But they didn’t stay above ground for very long, so I only photographed three. On this second visit, I was able to confirm that there […]
June 30, 2013 - This spring I had the awesome opportunity to regularly observe a Burrowing Owl family. For the next few blog posts, I’ll share images of the babies as they ventured out of the burrow and learned how to fly! For weeks I went by to check on the birds, finding nothing but Mom or Dad sitting […]
June 24, 2013 - After visiting the Black Skimmer colony with my dad on Father’s Day, we decided to head to Fort De Soto to explore. It was mid-day, and we knew we’d see more people than birds. Still, it’s hard to be half an hour away from Bird Photography Paradise and not at least stop by! I’m glad […]
June 22, 2013 - One of my favorite summertime photo opportunities is at a Black Skimmer colony in Indian Rocks Beach. The skimmers come to nest on the beach in front of some condos, and it’s very easy to photograph them with their babies. This year I went over to the colony with my dad for Father’s Day. He […]
June 20, 2013 - It’s time for round two on Burrowing Owls from Brian Piccolo Park! My last adventure was an evening shoot at a great nest with six babies. I went back to the same burrow the next morning. The owlets were nowhere near as active. I set up my Beast on my tripod and lowered it as […]
June 18, 2013 - Every year in the summertime, the people on Birdbrains start talking about the kettles of Swallow-Tailed Kites on Powerline Road in Hernando County. Last year I really wanted to go and see them, but I didn’t. This year Dyeyo and I decided to drive out there to see what there was to see. We […]
June 14, 2013 - I had two photo ops with the Burrowing Owls at Brian Piccolo Park on my recent trip to South Florida. One was an afternoon shoot, and the other was the next morning. You might ask why I drive over four hours to see a couple of owls. Well, maybe this will answer the question… There […]
June 12, 2013 - Rich and I visited the Juno Beach Loggerhead Marinelife Center while we were in South Florida over Memorial Day weekend. My grandparents used to live right down the street from the “turtle museum,” as we called it, and my cousins and I enjoyed seeing the turtles and watching the little babies run down to the […]
June 9, 2013 - On the morning that I photographed sunrise at Washington Oaks, I also made a stop at the Matanzas Tern Colony. In previous years, I’ve spent some very special mornings lying on the sand, watching the Least Terns and their tiny chicks. I was a little worried that the birds would find a new nesting site […]
June 6, 2013 - As the birding nesting season starts to wind down, I’ve been enjoying playing with my wide-angle lens for landscape shots. My friends often visit the beaches at Washington Oaks State Park on the way to the Least Tern colony, and I decided to stop there on my last off-Friday. It’s painful getting out of bed […]
June 4, 2013 - On Sunday I visited Lake Morton to photograph what is probably the last Mute Swan cygnet of the season. We’ve had a great spring this year, with lots of great nests and adorable cygnets. Unfortunately the babies are taken away by the City of Lakeland almost as soon as they hatch. So we haven’t had many opportunities to […]
June 2, 2013 - A few weeks ago, I was driving to a morning photography adventure and I happened to notice a great sunrise in my side mirror. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I pulled over and got the shot. It was a foggy morning, and I hadn’t expected the sunrise to be at all interesting. But the […]