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!)
December 5, 2011 - Yesterday I wrote about my morning at the Click Ponds. Then I drove over to the Viera Wetlands, where the ducks are starting to come back. There were plenty of coots (10054 if you listen to Kathy!!), with a few Shoveler, Hooded Mergansers, and a Bufflehead mixed in. I should have started out at the […]
December 4, 2011 - I had a great morning with friends at the Viera Wetlands. The morning started at the Click Ponds, two small ponds adjacent to the wetlands. After a post to Birdbrains yesterday about a Common Loon, which I’ve never seen, I was anxious to try for one. But we didn’t see one. We did see my […]
December 3, 2011 - It turned out to be a beautiful morning to be at the Circle B Bar Reserve. The forecast predicted some clouds, so I decided to hike the Alligator Alley trail, which I haven’t done in a while. Sunrise over Lake Hancock was pretty, as always (and the forecasters were wrong – the clouds didn’t come […]
November 27, 2011 - I almost decided not to go to the Circle B Bar Reserve this morning. The forecast predicted a mostly cloudy morning, and the cloud cover over our house at 6am was thick. But I didn’t want to miss my last vacation opportunity to go to Circle B, so I went anyway. My dad likes to […]
November 26, 2011 - Dyeyo and I spent a nice morning at the Circle B Bar Reserve a few days ago. I can’t believe our Thanksgiving Week is almost over. It feels like it’s lasted only one day! The marsh continues to be covered in pretty yellow flowers, called Burr Marigolds. I had only taken the Beast, so Dyeyo […]
November 25, 2011 - Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time. A few days ago when I was at Viera Wetlands, I was waiting for a fly-in shot on a nice palm trunk perch. The birds weren’t cooperating, though, and my attention moved to a Belted Kingfisher sitting on a different palm […]
November 23, 2011 - I’ve been reading about the Long-Tailed Duck on Birdbrains, so Rich and I decided to drive over to Lake Davis to see if we could find it. Lake Davis is a small lake in the middle of a downtown Orlando neighborhood. It’s very close to Greenwood Cemetery, but I resisted the temptation to bore Rich […]
November 22, 2011 - It’s been a while since I went birding anywhere except the Circle B Bar Reserve, so I decided to head over to Viera Wetlands yesterday morning. I’ve been following the birding news on Birdbrains and I knew that the wetlands aren’t particularly active at the moment, and that was true. But I did end up […]
November 21, 2011 - I spent a very pleasant morning at the Circle B Bar Reserve yesterday morning. I arrived about half an hour before sunrise and made my way out to the Wading Bird Way trail. It’s one of my favorite sunrise locations on the reserve. I like to watch the sun peek out from over the trees […]
November 20, 2011 - The two questions that I hear most often about Circle B are 1) When do the white pelicans arrive? and 2) When do the yellow flowers bloom? Well, I’m pleased to report that the answers to both questions are NOW! :) Several people have reported pelican fly-overs in the past week, and the marsh is […]
November 19, 2011 - These Blue-Winged Teals were some of the many that flew over Circle B’s Wading Bird Way trail last Sunday at dawn.
November 18, 2011 - Last weekend at Circle B, a lone Redhead Duck hung out in a pack of American Coots.
November 15, 2011 - I got my first shot of a Northern Harrier at Circle B this weekend. It’s not particularly well exposed, but it’s my proof – I saw him!
November 14, 2011 - Yesterday (Sunday) was a great morning for flight shots at the Circle B Bar Reserve. The sunrise was pretty, then the birds were flying from the lake on Wading Bird Way across the trail towards Lake Hancock. I saw Blue-Winged Teals, Green-Winged Teals, Gadwalls, American Wigeons, Northern Shovelers, and Mottled Ducks. The American Coots are […]
November 13, 2011 - I had a great morning at Circle B. The sunrise over the trees was spectacular, and the duck fly-overs gave me lots of flight shot practice. I’ll post more tomorrow, but here’s a teaser image…
November 12, 2011 - It was cool and a little breezy this morning, and it felt so good to get up early and go see some “golden light!” The Beast and I made our first trip to Circle B in several weeks. Some ducks have settled in, but not as many as I seem to remember from last year. […]
November 7, 2011 - Our Circle B Photo Walk schedule has been updated. The November walk was cancelled due to Thanksgiving. The December walk was moved to December 10. The songbird migrants have returned to Circle B for the winter, and the ducks are starting to arrive! My dad and I invite you to join us for a walk […]
November 5, 2011 - A Queen butterfly posed for me last weekend at the Circle B Bar Reserve.
November 4, 2011 - This Common Yellowthroat posed for me recently at Circle B. I like to call these guys “Zorro” because of their black masks. They are some of my favorite winter visitors.
October 31, 2011 - I was photographing the sunrise at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge back in September when I noticed this spider. His web was suspended between branches, and the background was the bright orange reflections of the sunrise in the water. I deliberately underexposed to bring out the colors in the background and to render the spider […]
October 30, 2011 - After a long weekend of rain, the morning started out cloudy at the Circle B Bar Reserve. I set up The Beast on the Heron Hideout trail and positioned myself in the flight path of the Bald Eagles who were flying in circles over the marsh, retrieving nesting material and taking it back to their […]
October 26, 2011 - I got in trouble with my turtle-loving husband when I didn’t post the picture of the turtle that I took at Circle B on Saturday. So here’s the turtle. Isn’t he cute? He looks like he’s going sliding on the water.
October 24, 2011 - I spent Sunday morning with The Beast at the Circle B Bar Reserve. It was hard to decide whether to head out to the marsh to catch the Bald Eagles flying with nesting material, or head to the lake to see the bobcat. The cloudless skies and great morning light made me decide on the […]
October 23, 2011 - Yesterday (Saturday) was the October photo hike at the Circle B Bar Reserve. My dad and I led three enthusiastic birders around the trails at the reserve. Last year our walks were big and we had a wide variety of birding/photography skill levels. This year our walks have been very small, and today’s group of […]
October 21, 2011 - I photographed this White-Eyed Vireo this weekend on the Alligator Alley trail of the Circle B Bar Reserve. I used fill flash to illuminate him deep within a tree. I recently started training myself to use a new technique for focusing on these little birds who love to flit in and out of small trees. […]
October 20, 2011 - I photographed this juvenile Red-Winged Blackbird at the Circle B Bar Reserve this weekend. It was a cloudy morning, so I was glad to have my flash with me. I really like how his brown tones contrast with the green vegetation and purple flowers around him.
October 19, 2011 - I forgot to post the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo picture in my blog post Cuckoos Chasing Cuckoos from this weekend. Oops! So here’s the bird that caused several photographers to follow him up and down the Marsh Rabbit Run trail. He likes to bury himself in trees with lots of leaves, so I was very surprised when […]
October 18, 2011 - The Palm Warblers have been back for several weeks now, but between rainy weather and work, this weekend was my first opportunity to take a decent photograph of one. This one was hopping around in a tree on the Marsh Rabbit Run trail at the Circle B Bar Reserve. It’s such fun to hear the […]
October 16, 2011 - I think the weather forecasters were a little overly optimistic this morning when they predicted “partly sunny” for 8am. I called it “mostly cloudy!” I was glad that I didn’t go to the Circle B Bar Reserve for sunrise, because there wasn’t one. The light levels were pretty low all morning. But it was great […]
October 15, 2011 - Dyeyo and I were excited to go to the Circle B Bar Reserve this morning after all the good birds that I saw there yesterday. Until we saw the clouds. And the runners. There were hundreds of people gathered this morning to run a 5K race right up and down the trails. Dyeyo and I […]
October 14, 2011 - It was a gorgeous morning at the Circle B Bar Reserve. The temperatures were cool, there was a little breeze, and the winter birds are coming back. The Belted Kingfishers were posed on the power lines at the entrance to the reserve, and within a few minutes of parking, I’d located my first of fall […]
October 13, 2011 - I photographed this Osprey at Fort De Soto park two weeks ago. I thought it was cool how he flew directly at the camera, with both eyes looking straight ahead. He dove several times for fish, but he went away empty-taloned.
October 10, 2011 - Happy birthday to my favorite hummingbird enthusiast… :) I have another version of this shot that has a better head angle, but I like this one too because it shows how the bird was resting on the flower while he nectared. I guess if I zipped around as much as these little birds do, I’d […]
October 7, 2011 - The days are getting shorter and I’m getting home later and later…not a good combination for new “In the Backyard” shots. Luckily I still have some fun pictures from Circle B last weekend to share. I think it’s supposed to rain most of the weekend. Sad news for photographers! This is a family of Common […]
October 6, 2011 - This is an HDR image of the sunrise at Circle B last Friday morning. I enjoyed photographing the light in the clouds until I saw the baby Limpkins emerge. That distracted me until after the sun was high in the sky! :)
October 5, 2011 - I’ve been hearing complaints about the lack of turtle posts. So here’s a turtle from the Circle B Bar Reserve this weekend!
October 4, 2011 - Last Friday morning the sunrise at Circle B was very cloudy and not particularly interesting, so the Beast and I focused on the flying birds and making silhouettes. I tried to catch the birds as they had interesting wing angles and as they flew against the orangey colors of the sunrise. Then in Photoshop, I […]
October 2, 2011 - The best colors of sunrise are often about half an hour before sunrise, and this morning the colors were totally worth the early wake-up call and two-hour drive to Fort De Soto! I arrived around 6:45 and made my way to East Beach, where the sun was just starting to show itself on the horizon. […]
October 1, 2011 - The cold front moved through and brought not only cooler temperatures, but lots of migrant birds! I spent a very nice morning at the Circle B Bar Reserve with Dyeyo. We chased lots of little birds and ended up with a pretty good migrant count, including an Indigo Bunting!! :) We hiked the Heron Hideout […]
September 30, 2011 - I spent my off-Friday morning with the baby Limpkins at the Circle B Bar Reserve. I headed out to the Wading Bird Way trail at sunrise. There were too many clouds for an impressive sunrise, but as I watched the light rising, I heard the baby Limpkins. I watched and waited, and within fifteen minutes […]
September 24, 2011 - We had our first photo walk at the Circle B Bar Reserve this morning. It was a small group, but we had a nice walk. We saw our first-of-fall Common Yellowthroats, and I’m pretty sure I heard several other warblers, but the mosquitoes were thick and we didn’t linger to watch them. We found the […]
September 23, 2011 - I’m looking forward to our first photo walk at the Circle B Bar Reserve tomorrow morning. So here’s yet another shot from a recent Circle B outing. I took this from the Wading Bird Way trail at sunrise, on a morning when the sun shone through the fog and illuminated the marsh. I love how […]
September 22, 2011 - Lately I’ve been playing with Photomatix and HDR. I went back to a sunrise panorama that I did at Lake Hancock at the Circle B Bar Reserve. Each portion of the panorama was bracketed for HDR. When I first processed it with Photoshop, I did the HDR on each frame individually, taking care to apply […]
September 21, 2011 - I was photographing hummingbirds at my parents’ house a few weekends ago when this House Sparrow posed nicely on the fence for me. I thought she was pretty, and she had a nice green background. Mum-mum has tons of House Sparrows visiting Missy’s Diner these days. They clean out her feeders every evening. But we […]
September 20, 2011 - Lots of people at the Circle B Bar Reserve this weekend commented that the famous baby Limpkins look a lot like baby Sandhill Cranes. They do! The colors are different, but the size, beak size, and general shapes of the babies are quite similar. I hunted up some Sandhill colt pictures from April to compare… […]
September 19, 2011 - This sunrise HDR image was created at the Circle B Bar Reserve on Saturday morning. I had already taken so many shots of the sunrise and the sun was pretty high in the sky. But before I switched to the Beast for bird shots, I took one final shot of the sun and surrounding clouds. […]
September 18, 2011 - I had an awesome morning yesterday (Saturday) at the Circle B Bar Reserve with my dad and Michael Libbe. We had a great sunrise and then spent some quality time with the baby Limpkins on the Wading Bird Way trail. :) The sunrise was beautiful. We arrived on Wading Bird Way about 10 minutes before […]
September 17, 2011 - I went to the Circle B Bar Reserve yesterday (Friday) in hopes of a gorgeous sunrise with sun beams bursting through the clouds and reflecting over Lake Hancock. I came home with images of a fireball and baby Limpkins! Such is a morning at CBBR. You never know what you’ll find out there. I arrived […]
September 16, 2011 - Work interfered with photography on this off-Friday, but I did manage to get to Circle B for a few hours this morning. I won’t have my full blog post ready till tomorrow, so here’s a teaser image of a flock of Blue-Winged Teals at sunrise over Lake Hancock. They are my first Blue-Winged Teals of […]