My final blogpost from Florida covers two other birdsm the Roseate Spoonbill and the White Ibis, from the Florida Instructional Photo Tour lead by Arthur Morris. Arthur is a fulltime professional photographer. He used to be a primary school teacher, now nearly a quarter century ago. Ever since he taught himself everything there is to learn about photography, innovating the art and the technique. To learn more about him, go to http://www.birdsasart.com, http://www.birdsasart-blog.com or come and learn more about photography on http://www.birdphotographers.net.
On our first day we went to the Estero Lagoon, a narrow strip of land between the sea and the Ft. Myers Beach coastline. Now and then, the lagoon floods at high water and so a wetland area developed, attracting a wide variety of bird-life. Since so many photographers visit this place, the birds here are ridiculously tame and allow real close up encounters. On this morning, Arthur prepared this day by attracting the birds with some small bait fish. At first they didn’t come but after a few convincing yells from Arthur the birds saw what was going on and came in in flocks. Among those, Snowy Egrets, Great White Egrets, Reddish Egrets, Tricoloured Herons, Brown Pelicans and White Ibisses.
| White Ibis with bait fish |
|
After the first frenzy of feeding settled, I got some time to create a beautiful portrait of a White Ibis in stunning morning light.
| White Ibis Portrait |
|
| note those hypnotising eyes |
But baiting is not really needed. The lagoon is well filled with lots of fish and after we finished with our baiting, the birds continued hunting on their own.
| White Ibis Hunting |
|
| … some fish I don’t know … note how the Ibis shakes the fish to clean it. |
After finishing the IPT with Arthur, I added an extra day to experience a boat trip on Tampa Bay. On the islands in the middle of the bay, large Roseate Spoonbill colonies can be found as well as hundreds of Turkey Vultures. To photograph them, we positioned ourselves in the water, just a few meters short of the island’s coastline, as entering or landing on the islands is prohibited. Waste deep into the water, tripod with camera included (camera just a foot or two from the salt seawater), we waited for the spoonbills to return from their hunting trips or to leave for them.
| Roseate Spoonbill Braking |
|
| Returning to a small flock of spoonbills gathering on the banks |
In regular occurances, as soon as a larger number of spoonbills have returned, they suddenly all take flight and go to the bay’s feeding grounds.
| Roseate Spoonbills Take Off |
|
|
| Note the residential coastline on the horizon |
As soon as they have left, they return individually. I was able to get a few nice shots of the spoonbill in gliding approach flight.
| Roseate Spoonbill Incoming |
|
|
|
|
My final image of this post is of one of the Turkey Vultures flying over while standing in the surf. Impressive birds.
| Turkey Vulture Flying Over |
|
| Banking nicely in the morning sun |
See all images from the Florida IPT at Florida IPT Gallery.