Florida has been good to us from a birding standpoint.  It’s been down-right enjoyable getting some time just us being outside and birding in the sun-filled heat.  With all the trips we lead and all the groups we bird with, it’s always nice just to get a chance to simply bird together.  Below is our full list.  Our goal was 100 species and we got to 105.  We’re both very content with that list.  New species for Kara were Swallow-tailed Kite, Snail Kite, Mottled Duck, & Black-bellied Whistling Duck.  New species for Josh were Snail Kite and Mottled Duck.  Species of note were a slightly early Acadian Flycatcher & of-course, the endangered Snail Kite.

Now in the Orlando area with family, I’ve had some time working a few more images and finally getting another post thrown together.  It’s been a good trip and we’ve seen a lot of birds (full list of birds coming in next post).  One bird that has escaped many good shots in Michigan was an easy take this trip, a Red-bellied Woodpecker.  Dad has some nice winter shots of this species and we think the image below will be a nice addition to the collection, given the warm summer glow in the background.

What would a southern Florida trip be without Alligators?  These guys are hard to find but decent images are another story.  It’s tough to get on their level when one doesn’t prefer to swim in the same waters they are hunting but I did manage a nice shot of a baby that Kara found while I was photographing a Common Moorhen.  Nice find Kara!

One of my favorite spots was on the beach on Sanibel Island.  We were lucky enough to come across a huge group of Terns with a few Black Skimmers mixed in.  Resting and fully accustomed to people, I was able to sit on the beach right inside the group.

I had Royal Terns within 5 feet of me on all sides (do I want to come back as a bird?  Hell yeah…but I hope to be  Northern Goshawk).  Anyway, I concentrated on flight shots and the images below are with a 70-200mm Lens which tells the photographers out there how close I was for these full-frame images!

I think the shot of the trip, however, is the Burrowing Owl at first light.  The warm glow of the summer lighting makes this image and the space around the bird helps tell a story.  Many photographers strive for full-frame images of birds but don’t be afraid to have some space in your photographs that give more meaning to your images.

Stay tuned as I will post again later today with our full bird list.  We plan to hit a couple spots tomorrow before heading home so a post when we return will most definitely be out as well.

Florida has been hot and sunny and besides a lot of driving, we’ve been hitting some great spots.  Some include Corkscrew Swamp, Blue Cypress Refuge, Shark Valley (Everglades) and Ding Darling on Sanibel Island.

We are lucky enough to be on Sanibel Island staying with some friends.  They have been so nice and welcomed us right in.  They’ve shown us their favorite spots and we’ve been able to spend quite some time in Ding Darling as well as on the beach.

The photography has been good and I’ve had some great opportunities.  We’re barely half way through our week and still have some amazing spots to hit yet.  Last night brought some great star-gazing on the island and wouldn’t you know it, there are 4 iPads between us and our group of friends and we had the pleasure of showing them the phenomenal app called “Star Walk” which excited them enough that the ladies couldn’t sleep!  Needless to say, all the iPads here now have the app and we’re excited for more star-gazing this evening.  =)  On another note, my super laser that I use for showing people where birds are excited them to see the stars we were talking about with pinpoint accuracy.

Stay tuned, I’ll will try and hit the blog a few more times before heading home.  In the meantime, feel free to laugh as I did after hearing Kara giggle and say she thinks the Purple Gallinule above is line-dancing!

Just an FYI for our followers.  Josh will be in Florida next week so stay close to the blog for posts about the trip with first looks at new images!

Also,  Lesson 7, Using Histogram is in the works.  Definitely a topic people have been asking about.  It should be out soon.  Stay tuned and get outside, Spring is coming!

When: Thursday Evenings, May 19 & 26, June 2
Where: Kalamazoo Nature Center (to register, please call 269-381-1574)
Audience: Adults with Digital or Film SLRs (limited to 5)
Fee: $65 KNC Members, $75 Non-Members

This 3-part Series to Bird Photography will be an amazing workshop stepping participants through some of the techniques to capturing better bird images day in and day out. Josh will help participants get out of AUTO modes and be more creative with the gear they currently own. The series will start out at the beginning level and move on to intermediate techniques that will include some of the following:

*Using the right equipment
*Composition and framing
*Preparing for the shot
*Exposure for birds
*Hummingbirds (this workshop will have a lot of focus on Hummers!!!)
*Perching songbirds
*Flight techniques
*Beginning set-ups

After getting my lens back, I finally had some good lighting yesterday to do some real testing.  The lens seemed to perform well.  I still have some tests to do but hopefully it will continue to perform.  I headed to the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary knowing I’d have lots of flying subjects to track and focus.

Dad met me out there and we enjoyed the shooting as well as hanging out with our good friend Roy Van Loo.  Near the end of the day, the Trumpeters became quite active and we even had group fly-bys no more than 25 feet from us.  Males are starting to show their dominance and even the juveniles are getting independent.  Great-Blues are even starting to claim nests in the nearby rookery.  Spring is coming!!!

March 9, 2011, 7:00 pm
The Chief Noonday Chapter of the North Country Trail will have a presentation of Nature Photography by Josh Haas, Co-owner of “Glances at Nature” during their March 9^th meeting.  Josh is a well recognized photographer of all things nature.  Glances at Nature offers training programs, field trips, and sales of some phenomenal pictures taken by Josh and his father.  Examples of their work can be found at www.glancesatnature.com.  The presentation is titled “Enriching your hikes, One photo at a time”  All interested in hiking or nature photography are welcome to attend!

The NORTH COUNTRY TRAIL is one of our Nation’s premier hiking and backpacking trails, extending 4,400 miles from New York to North Dakota.  First conceived in the 1960’s it links outstanding scenic, natural, recreational, historic and cultural areas.

The Chief Noonday Chapter is responsible for building, maintaining and promoting the NCT in Barry, Kalamazoo and Calhoun County.  Our portion of the NCT spans approximately 95 miles of trail!  We have a great group of volunteers.  The chapter has a monthly work day to improve our section of the trail.  We also have a monthly hike offering the opportunity to make friends and get some exercise.  There is a monthly chapter meeting, often with a presentation regarding hiking.

More information can be found at www.northcountrytrail.org/cnd/.  The March meeting will take place at 7:00, March 9^th at the Barry Township Hall located at 155 East Orchard St. Delton, MI.  For questions please contact Eric Longman, 269 671-5031.

I worked a few more images while on planes today.  It was a long day of bumpy flights but working images did make it go by a bit faster.

I actually forgot about seeing this Coyote at the very end of our first day in the park.  We enjoyed seeing him attempting to walk and stay above the snow but he actually started Mousing in-front of us.  He was waaaay out but I decided to set up on him anyway and I’m gald I did.  I was focused on him and noticed him lean way back so I put the hammer down and captured a cool sequence of him lungeing.  So cool!!!

Unrelated to our trip but I also found another Bald Eagle image I really like from a couple weekends ago.

With a flight scheduled at 3:37pm Montana time, we headed into the park for one last morning drive before making our way to Bozeman ahead of our first flight.  The sun was peeking it’s way through the clouds and it was a nice last jaunt.  The mammals seemed to be grouped up and there were many Elk and Bison hanging around.  We saw a single Coyote but no Red Foxes today.  We did, however, have nice views of two Bull Elk towards the end of our drive.  They caught our eyes enough that we got our snow shoes out for one last time and hiked up a small bluff to get a better view of one of the big boys.

We also got a view through someone’s scope at a very distant black Wolf.  Waaaay out but nice to see  on our last day.  Our Yellowstone trip was great but it left us wanting to experience it in a different season.  Hopefully in the coming years, we can hit the park in Spring or Fall to see more.  Winter here was awesome but we’re already thinking about our Florida trip next month.

Today was our last full day in North Yellowstone.  We spent the first half of our day with our friend Nate.  No wolves but we somehow saw 4 individual Red Foxes which was sweet.  We even had one mousing for us.

The weather was mostly cloudy with on and off snow but we did have a few breaks of diffused sunlight pop through.  On our way back West to Mammoth at mid-day, we found a Coyote hanging out not too far from the road.  He actually stopped and sat down for us.

Kara and I finished our day in the park with a nice snowshoe hike at a place called Lava Creek.  The hike was nice and took us along the creek through coniferous forest.  We saw a single Stellar’s Jay as well as a Hairy Woodpecker but the highlight was definitely 2 moose we scared up.  No nice shots of them but I did get one to proove the ID.  It was funny because we hadn’t seen any moose yet but just prior to kicking them up, we saw fresh tracks that seemed like Moose tracks to us.  It was pretty cool to see them shortly after that.

We ended the hike with quite a predicament.  We needed to cross a small creek and the only way around would’ve been to back-track for what seemed like forever.  We put some thought to it, conjured up a dash of Bear Grylls and rummaged for a couple nice-sized feld 4″ logs.  I found 2 good ones, spanned them across the creek and we inched across on snowshoes.  Both of us made it across and saved more than an hour of back-tracking.  Sweet!

Tomorrow morning, we’ll hit the park for the last time before heading back to Bozeman to start our flights home.