Long Key Park in Davie, FL continues to be my favorite spot for the time being !
It works best as an evening shoot for the nice light on the rookery and the incoming Ibis that
flock to the park to roost for the night. Excellent opportunities for flight shots and a great place to meet new photographers such as Aurelio Miranda-Sousa from Miami. Check out his work at
BondbyArt.Com ! Aurelio is getting a new Canon 300 2.8 lens today. Oh Yeah !!
My Canon 1D2N is back in my hands and fixed. Here's what Canon FSC in NJ did to my camera : Replaced body mount , lock pin unit and replaced the shutter unit. Checked all , exposure & focus and cleaned C-mos to factory specs.
Sounds good ! I will try it out tonight at Long Key. Fingers crossed.
However a good lesson came out of all this as I am continued to be amazed at just how good the Canon 40D really is !! It is an all around solid camera and a worthy back up to my Canon Mark 1D2N to say the least !
Here's a couple more form the 40D:
Little Blue Heron in Flight over Water
Cattle Egret in Flight over cloudy skies
Blog. Blogging. Blogger........ Blag.
How do people keep up with stuff like this ?
I blink and weeks have gone by with no updates.... I cease to exist in the Blog world.
Oh well.
I have been doing a lot of shooting at Long Key park in Davie , FL lately and
have been working on silhouette images in the last minutes of sunlight.
I also just spend two days at Gatorland in Orlando a place I love to visit & shoot at !
The owner Mike Godwin is a superb host and will show you the magic places to shoot
that are not usually open to the public !
I had the pleasure of shooting along side of photographer BJ Ramsay of Maryland as well as
Jeff D Johnston from Alabama .
I also had shutter failure on my Canon 1D2N after 80,044 images and it is at Canon NJ repair facility to be fixed or 300.00 ! Ouch !!
So here is a silhouette from Davie of a pair of bickering White Ibis & a pair of Cattle Egret from Gatorland for you to enjoy !
My friend Gene Sinnema and I Started the day at Loxahatchee NWR in Boynton Beach, FL and we were rewarded with cloudy skies and few birds. Lox used to be my favorite haunt in the late 90's . Bummer.
We then proceeded to head up to Okeeheelee Nature Center in West Palm Beach, FL which is about 8 miles north of Boynton Beach. We were in search of Painted Buntings and we found what we were looking for ! We saw seven female Buntings at one time along with two male Painted Buntings. We both scored a few good images but we were severely hampered by two things. First were the squirrels. They were as many as eleven squirrels at one time eating the seed and chasing any bird that landed near them. The second came in the form of another photographer who meant well but ultimately ruined my best ever image of a female Painted Bunting!
This lady photographer had spread peanut butter all over the main landing perches for the buntings as well as a log they use as well. When I finally got an image I had hoped for it was smeared with Peter Pan Peanut Butter !~! ARRGGH !!! Look at that PB...where's the J ?
I ended the day at Long Key Nature Center in Davie and shot along side of fellow Everglades Photographic Society (EPS ) member Hugh McLaughlin. Hugh is good people. The light was good and several good images were made.
Here are two from Long Key. Both images are of a Cattle Egret. The top image shows the Cattle Egret in breeding plumage and the image below shows non breeding plumage.
Michael Wolf
My Website & Flicker Images
I spent the afternoon wandering around Broward County's newest park named Long Key Natural Area that opened up in Davie, FL on March 14 2008.
Daggertail Butterfly
Florida Honeybee
I know this will be a regular destination this season as the 8 plus Great Egret Nest are all active and there are even chicks hatched and begging for food at this time!
Michael Wolf
http://www.floridanaturephotography.net/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/floridanaturephotography/