Scanning the plowed fields at the Farm Institute in Katama has been de rigeur for the past couple of weeks, anyway, for the regulars, and also for the more sought-after Upland Sandpiper and Buff-breasteds.  Neither of each until yesterday, when Rob Culbert, pro ecologist and local birding guide, emailed some of the local birders that on his Saturday morning field trip rounds he had espied up to five buffies bobbing and poking their way around the field.

I forwarded the email and made a couple of heads-up calls.  Warren went out mid-afternoon and saw three, fairly close to the road and typically working the field edges.  Pete was going to some annual road association meeting, so he had to reign in.  No feedback from others.  I waited as long as I could stand, figuring cooler air and later light would favor the photo op.  I found the three with little delay.  I parked and meandered out to get up-light of the target sandpipers.  Since buffies can be rather active and sometimes skittish when approached, the best bet is to assess their general direction trend and place myself in the way.  A couple times they seemed to fly when their proximity discomfort level ( PDL, a new less-than-technical term of mine) was reached; although, the last time they flew, their trajectory was within feet of my legs and about eighteen inches off the ground, so I guess it really wasn’t about me after all.

These images and Lanny McDowell Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

And birds are still cool!  Lan

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There were feeding birds of some sort almost wherever I stopped the car…

This third segment of my Florida birding sojourn involves parts of Merritt Island,  a refuge east of Titusville, south of Daytona and within eyesight of Cape Canaveral.

After driving up from Wakodahatchee, I got a place to stay, dumped some gear and made it out for a couple of late afternoon hours to  Merritt Island and chose one of the  more commonly used (and paved) driving tours you can take around the managed impoundments of the preserve.  Black Point I think it’s called.  I stopped in at the park headquarters and store to purchase the Bill Pranty guide to Florida birding.  The next morning at sunrise there was a thin layer of ice on the back window of my rental and I was eager to drive back to the island to run the less-travelled coral and dirt loops along the southern side of the preserve.  This drive included canals, a saltwater bayshore and mudflats… perfect habitats for swimming, diving and wading birds with convenient and frequent access for photographing birds.

Photo tip: on a typical day of shooting, when I actually spent a fair amount of time birding, as opposed to time spent getting to the birding, I was filling one and a half four gigabyte flash cards, taking bird photos in RAW and large Jpegs.  This represents about 450 shots.  I usually do not stop to edit along the way, meaning delete, because I don’t need to and don’t want to take the time.  The exception is when I fill up a card and do not have access to another card right then and there.  I try not to let this happen.

Near the beginning of the driving tour I found a string of resting Stilt Sandpipers, the only ones I saw on the entire trip.  Here’s a flock of winging dowitchers, long-billeds I imagine:

I noticed that some different species associate with ibises, following them around to see what gets stirred up – Pied-billed Grebes, snowies and Little Blue Herons.

Here are two whoppers, meaning I chose to display them, a Wilson’s Snipe and a female Belted Kingfisher, in a really large format, at least on my laptop.  Which do you think is better, to show bird photos that fit neatly into the frame of the blog or large ones like these two which put you closer to the bird, but which may induce you to use sliders up and down and side to side to see the entire image?

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me (below right) saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

These images and more are available for purchase. Contact me or View store.

Birds are cool!  Lanny     

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