trip report: SW Florida Birds 2003
We flew with Virgin Atlantic and again had no problem with carrying-on our camera equipment – I had a fully loaded Lowe Pro Photo Trekker and Karen a Nature Trekker. As we were shooting digital I also carried on a small laptop in a separate bag. Tripods and heads went in the checked luggage as did a compact CD burner for backup. Equipment was Nikon D1 (classic) camera bodies and a range of lenses including the 500 f/4 AF-S and the 300 f/4 AF-S.
Venice Rookery was as good as ever. Our first morning was foggy, the second clear. There were at least two great blue nests with chicks, both relatively easy to isolate from the clutter of other nests and perched birds. The D1 is supposed to have the same meter as the F5. Don’t know if that’s true but found that white birds against a mid toned or dark background in full sun required up to a stop and a third correction to avoid blowing out the highlights. This was a problem with fly-ins where the background changed from sky (where no correction needed) to the bushes behind. With hindsight setting a manual exposure using sunny f/16 might have been a better bet. Great Blues in full sun needed two thirds of a stop (as in shot below) to avoid blowing out the whites. Other than that the meter seemed quite good. I never found a situation were I needed to add light.
N.B. All images are full frame except where noted.
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Great Blue
Herons in courtship ritual Venice Rookery Nikon D1 Jpeg Fine Capture Nikon 300 f/4 AF-S with TC14E converter Matrix meter at -2/3 stop |
Sanibel was the best location this time. We had three mornings at Ding Darling which were slow, spectacular and good respectively. A fabulous group of twenty or more spoonbills plus herons, egrets and white pelicans at the cross dyke on the second morning gave great opportunities with fly-ins and fly-outs. It was good to meet Artie Morris again who as usual seemed to have his IPT group in the right place at the right time. We did well with plovers, turnstones and a good collection of gulls and terns at Blind Pass. We didn’t see the Great White this year.
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Roseate Spoonbill Cross Dyke, Ding Darling NWR, Sanibel Nikon D1 Jpeg Fine Capture Nikon 300 f/4 AF-S with TC14E converter Matrix meter at -1/2 stop Image cropped by about 10% to remove clutter from left side |
The burrowing owls on Cape Coral gave lots of good opportunities, helped by previous visitors who had fixed up some natural-looking perches to the plastic piping erected by the council to tape off the nest sites. Typically though my best shot was a bird perched on one of the man-made looking wooden perches.
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Burrowing Owl Cape Coral Nikon D1 Jpeg Fine Capture Nikon 500 f/4 AF-S with TC14E converter Matrix meter at zero |
Estero Lagoon was a little slow again. The oystercatchers were cooperative at the Holiday-Inn end, but there wasn’t much else going on.Further on beyond the fishing piers we did well with a couple of egrets on our way to find the White-Phase Reddish Egret. We did find him and managed to make a few reasonable images before he flew. You need to be really early to catch him. At least the Holiday Inn does a great breakfast (dinnersthere were excellent this year too!).
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White-phase Reddish Egret Estero Lagoon, Ft Myers Beach Nikon D1 Jpeg Fine Capture Nikon 500 f/4 AF-S Matrix meter at -1/3 stop |
Corkscrew Swamp was mixed. After three years we finally got clear shots of a barred owl (none good enough to share here though). We did well with a black crowned night heron at lettuce lakes but on general it was very poor for wading birds due to high water levels (the opposite of last year). Flash was essential which was a major pain with the D1 and would be impossible with a moving subject. We saw swallow-tailed kites but none came close enough to shoot.
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Black Crowned Night Heron Lettuce Lakes, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary Nikon D1 Jpeg Fine Capture Nikon 500 f/4 AF-S Ambient light: Matrix meter at -1 1/3 stops Fill flash: SB28 on Manual, half power |
The Everglades was on the whole a disappointment this year. We abandoned plans to shoot at shark valley (due to record high temperatures and humidity) and took the tram again instead. The Anhinga Trail, normally a highlight, was a literally a wash out this year. After violent storms the night before we arrived there was hardly any bird life to be seen. We went back twice more and did well with some green heron chicks, but apart from that the opportunities were limited.
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Green Heron chick (one of three) Anhinga Trail, Everglades NP Nikon D1 Raw Capture Nikon 500 f/4 AF-S Matrix meter at -2/3 stop |
We had been led to believe that Eco Pond at Flamingo would be hopeless so were pleasantly surprised. The park service has allowed the cat-tails (bull rushes) to grow up around virtually the whole pond limiting shooting to the raised viewing platform. That said, the evening White Ibis fly-ins gave some good opportunities for flight shots against great sky colours. This yielded one of my favourite images of the trip. On our second evening we were pleased to find a Great White Heron in a super spot for portrait shots from the platform. Paurotis Pond was good for Wood Stork flight shots but again the mid afternoon heat was a major problem.
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White Ibis at sunset Eco Pond, Flamingo, Everglades NP Nikon D1 Raw Capture Nikon 500 f/4 AF-S Matrix meter at zero |
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Great White Heron Eco Pond, Flamingo, Everglades NP Nikon D1 Raw Capture Nikon 500 f/4 AF-S Matrix meter at -1 1/3 stops Would have been nice if he'd hung around another twenty minutes while the light softened..... |
Because the Anhinga Trail was so poor we took an excursion to Wakodahatchee.The conditions were dreadful (rain and cloud) but it has potential we think. There was lots of subject variety. The major problem is that for most subjects you’d be shooting down from the boardwalk. But we think we’ll try this again another year.
All text and images Copyright 2003 Martin and Karen Plant
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