|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
 Thayer's Gull (Larus thayerii) - Allan H. Treman Marine State Park, Ithaca, New York, As you may remember, I had put together two sets of goals for the winter, one to focus on my time here in New York and one set aimed at my time in south Florida. Yesterday, we looked a how successful I was with the Florida goals and today we will look at the goals for New York.
 Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) - Picayune Strand State Forest, Florida Now that I am back home and spring is just around the corner, I wanted to take a moment to revisit the goals I had laid out back in late October. That’s one thing about goals, people often set them, talk about them, but after things are finished, few of us go back and really examine our goals to see if we met our expectations or not. With that in mind, let’s take a look and see how I did.
Click to read more…
After a couple days of sitting at the computer and moving files around, I have now successfully moved Wanderer’s Apprentice, and all my other sites, to a new server. For you, the reader, it should make no difference but hopefully things will be a bit faster and have fewer outages. If anyone is having any problems, please let me know. The move also gave me an opportunity to make a few upgrades and improvements to the blog. Again, most are simply performance based, but one will hopefully make the blog a better viewing experience. Now, if you click on any image in a post, it will load a larger version. I hope you find this a valuable feature and it allows you to get a better look at my photographs. If you have any problems or suggestions with the site in the coming days or weeks, please don’t hesitate to email me or leave a comment here. I think I have caught all the bugs, but I may have missed one or two. Thanks for your help and look for new content starting Monday!
Today’s post is the 100th post on the blog since its first launch back in September, just about 6 months ago. I wanted to first thank all of you readers as this blog wouldn’t be much without your feedback and input. It’s great to have an audience for my writing and photography. I’ve got a few technical changes coming up that I’d like to mention as well. First off, I have received feedback that people would like to see larger images available on the blog. Well, ask and you shall receive. This weekend I will be working on implementing a lightbox function so that you can click on the image and see it much larger. Look for this change to be online by Monday. Second, I will be doing some additional work on the backend of the site. I will be moving servers this weekend. As I will be moving all of my sites, I have a fairly major task in front of me. Please be patient as I work behind the scenes and remember that new content will be coming soon! Now, what do you want to see different on the blog? Is there anything you particularly enjoy or something that hasn’t really grabbed you? I’d love to hear your feedback here in the comments or via email. I’ve got a few new features in mind and starting next week I’ll be back to posting on a regular basis. See you then!
 Northern Parula (Parula americana) - Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park, Florida Yesterday I looked at the flycatchers that can be seen and photographed on a regular basis at Anhinga Trail, so today we’ll look at the Wood Warblers. These small, typically colorful birds can be extremely difficult to photograph. Most prefer the canopy of tall trees and rarely come down to eye level. Well, at Anhinga Trail there are no tall trees so you can get lucky and get a canopy loving species like a Northern Parula at eye level.
 Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) - Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park, Florida Anhinga Trail is known as one of the premiere locations to photograph Anhingas, herons, egrets, Wood Storks, and more. The place is so well known that on Saturday evening I witnessed well above $100,000 worth of lenses and camera equipment pointed at a single Great Blue Heron. It’s a popular place and I have been there so many times, I am much pickier where I point my lens these days. On Friday morning, I decided to focus on the often ignored songbirds of Anhinga Trail. The marsh and reeds that line the edges of the canals can be extremely productive for a number of songbirds. On most visits, I see at least several species of warblers, a couple flycatchers, a couple blackbirds, and typically a handful of other species. Most photographers simply ignore these birds as they look for the charismatic herons and egrets.
 Clay-colored Sparrow (Spizella pallida) - Eco Pond, Everglades National Park, Florida It’s always fun when you find an unusual or out of place bird when birding. I had the pleasure to do just that twice over last weekend. Now when I am talking about unusual birds, I’m not talking about the birds themselves being weird or strange, I’m saying that their mere presence is unusual. So this past weekend I had two pretty cool and unusual species show up in Everglades National Park.
 American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) - Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida It’s hard to come to Big Cypress and the Everglades and not take a few photos of the abundant American Alligators. I have hundreds in my files but they keep attracting my attention and my lens. This image is simple and I have little to say about it except that the reflections attracted my attentions and I simply love the deep greens in the water.
 Cypress Dome after Wildfire - Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida At the end of last April, lightning ignited a wildfire in Big Cypress National Preserve, just south of Interstate 75 as it crosses the state. The fire burned for about two weeks and fire crews from the preserve worked hard to contain the fire. Now about 10 months later, I have been wading through the burned out dome photographing the charred trunks contrasted with the brilliant greens of new sawgrass growth.
 Dingy-flowered Star Orchid (Epidendrum amphistomum) - Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida This weekend I will be searching through Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve in an attempt to find blooming orchids of any variety. I have no idea what I will find or if I will find any at all. This isn’t the ideal time of year for some of the most spectacular species but there should be some in bloom and I’m here now so I’m going to give it a try.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Log in - Register |
|||||||||||||||||||||
