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Big Cypress: Snakes!

January 18, 2010 By 2 Comments
Yellow Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata) - Turner River Road, Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida

Yellow Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata) - Turner River Road, Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida

As the temperatures have warmed up over the past week, so have the reptiles.  Just last night, as I was driving back to my campsite, I saw at least 3 or 4 on the road trying to soak up the last bits of heat from the black pavement.  On Friday, I saw my first Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake alongside a trail way out in the prairies of Big Cypress.  As I thought back on it, I was shocked to realize that, despite the amount of time I spend in the woods, I had never seen an Eastern Diamondback before then.  Unfortunately, I was purely scouting and wasn’t carrying a camera. [Read more...]

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Everglades: Hiding from the Rain…

January 17, 2010 By 1 Comment

Stiff-leaved Wild Pine (Tillandsia fasciculata) on Cypress - Big Cypress National Preserve

Today is quite simply a rainy day and I am hiding in Starbucks at the moment trying to get caught up on image editing and write a few blog posts.  The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind, but extremely productive.  Essentially I have been in Big Cypress National Preserve covering every possible inch of road and potential photo location for an upcoming project (stay tuned for an announcement in the next few months) as well as scouting for upcoming shoots.  I covered a ton of ground and saw some really cool areas.  It was great to revisit some of my old haunts and discover new ones as well.

Most of my attention was focused on scouting, but I did squeeze in a bit of shooting as well.  I have just queued up a series of blog posts for each of the next few days using some of these images, so stay tuned! I’ll be back in town with more stuff on Wednesday, if not before!

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Anhinga Trail: Fish and the Cold

January 16, 2010 By 1 Comment
Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) with dead Walking Catfish - Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park, Florida

Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) with dead Walking Catfish - Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park, Florida

If you have seen the weather in the last few weeks, you know that Florida had one crazy cold snap.  We saw record breaking lows, extended periods below freezing, and I even heard of a few bits of snow!  All this was fairly bad.  It made my wife and I change our plans.  It has possibly devastated the citrus industry.  Driving around Homestead and Florida City, I see a lot of dead banana trees and entire fields of dead squash plants.  However, all this cold did benefit one thing here in the Everglades: native wildlife…

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Anhinga Trail: All About Anhingas

January 15, 2010 By 1 Comment

Male Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) - Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park, Florida

One of the iconic locations in Everglades National Park is the Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm.  This boardwalk is only about a half mile long but it extends out into the marsh affording extremely close views of alligators, herons, egrets, and if you are lucky, a purple gallinule.  However, the stars of the show are really the trail’s namesakes, the Anhingas.

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Return to the Everglades

January 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Great Egret (Egretta alba) scratching an itch - Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park, Florida

It was five years ago, give or take a week or so, that I moved to the Everglades to begin a five month photographic project.  As a junior in college “studying abroad” in the Everglades, it was my first taste of the life I had imagined. Photographing on a daily basis.  Waiting for the perfect life day after day.  Following a nest of birds as they matured.  It was everything I wanted it to be.

Now, five years later, I have returned.  I won’t be here for five months but I’ll be here for at least a month.  This is the first time I have really been back for any significant period of time.  Mostly, things are the same but two major hurricanes in late 2005 (Katrina and Wilma) have transformed Flamingo, the area I lived.  I am extremely excited to see how things here have changed and how I have changed as well.

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Interactive Habitat: Winter Spruce Bog

November 6, 2009 By 1 Comment

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Summer Hill Spruce Bog #1

A spruce bog is a habitat that I am totally unfamiliar with so as of now, I don’t have a whole lot of information.  It is a really amazing habitat and hosts a huge diversity of wildlife as they typically are somewhat small and create a lot of edge effect, where two habitats come together.  In late fall and winter, bird life is relatively quiet.  However, just this morning I saw Ruffed Grouse, American Crow, Blue Jays, Black-capped Chickadees, and more.  Early in the year I had huge flocks of Song and Swamp Sparrows and other fall migrants including several Ash-throated Flycatchers.  Mallards and Wood Ducks as well as Canada Geese call this marsh home as well.  Spring and summer host numerous breeding warblers and other songbirds and I will bring you more on that in the spring.

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Woodpeckers Everywhere

October 27, 2009 By 1 Comment

Red-bellied Woodpecker - Everglades National Park, Florida

I was going stir crazy sitting in front of the computer all day, so this evening I headed out for a walk in the woods.  I decided to explore a patch of forest known as Monkey Run as I had never been there before, and an immature Red-headed Woodpecker had been seen there a couple times in the last few days.

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A Busted Morning

October 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I headed out into the cold this morning to see what I could find at Myers Point.  My hope is that there would be a couple shorebirds hanging out that I could spend an hour or two photographing.  Unfortunately the only shorebird was a lonely Killdeer.  The point was covered in gulls, but I didn’t spend any time photographing them.  In hindsight, I probably should have given it a shot as I struck out everywhere else.

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Weather Forecasts and Geese

October 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Mallard - Stewart Park, Ithaca, NY

Mallard - Stewart Park, Ithaca, NY

I am getting more than just a bit frustrated with the weather forecasts these days.  Today I slept in because the weather forecast said a rainy cloudy morning followed by a sunnier afternoon and evening.  When I got up this morning it was gorgeous.  When I just headed out to photograph this evening, it got cloudy.  It makes for a frustrating time.

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First Snow?!?

October 16, 2009 By 1 Comment
First Snow - Roy H. Park Preserve, Dryden, NY

First Snow - Roy H. Park Preserve, Dryden, NY

It is hard to believe that we are half way through October and have already had our first snow.  I’m a Floridian so this is rather mind blowing.  I did live in Maine for four years, but even there we usually didn’t have a good snow until Thanksgiving.  My birthday is next weekend and it has already snowed.  I simply can’t believe it.

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