Lunch Is Served

After successfully capturing the beast, he paraded around while waiting for it to expire.

Proud Grebe

As he began to consume the fish, it became apparent that there might be a small problem.

Down The Hatch

Now, I’m no expert on such matters, but it seems to me that this fish might be more than a mouthful. A Pied-billed Grebe is only 13 inches long and weight about a pound. Usually you see them with smaller fish, shrimp or crustaceans for their meal.

More Than A Mouthful

So he tries again to get the beast down. In fact, he worked hard at this for 15 minutes before I decided I had shot enough frames.

If At First You Don't Suceed

When I left him, he had a forlorn look on his face as he contemplated his next move.

What To Do Next?

Although I didn’t stay for the conclusion of this epic battle, I’m pretty sure he didn’t get this one down. It isn’t uncommon for birds to swallow more than it seems that they are able to handle. But I have also heard of large fish like this getting stuck halfway down and the bird not being able to expel the prey. When that happens, the bird will likely drown if it is unable to get out of the water or expel the prey. All part of the circle of life. I half expected with all the thrashing this grebe was doing that he would attract a gator. With his attention on getting the prey down, a gator could have easily caught up with him.

Roseate Spoonbill Feeding

Spoonbills, or Rosies, get their primary color from their diet, just like Flamingos do. They swing their spoon-shaped bill back and forth in the water and pick up crustaceans, insects, frogs, newts and small fish.

Roseate Spoonbill Preparing to Land

Their color varies depending on age. The older birds are much more colorful than younger birds, especially during breeding season.

Roseate Spoonbill

Adult spoonbills, or spoonies, have very few predators as adults with their primary predator being the American Alligator. Ornithologists have recorded the oldest known spoonie in the wild at 16 years old.

Graceful Flyer

Spoonies are a favorite of avian photographers because of their vivid colors. They are also one of my favorites which is why I have enjoyed the numerous opportunities I’ve had to work with them.

Early Morning Spoonbill

Rosies can be quite beautiful in the early morning light. But you have to be quick as they usually leave their roosts shortly after sunrise to begin foraging.

The Three Spoonies

Case in point is the image above. I arrived before dawn at a small pond where rosies have been known to roost overnight. When I arrived, there were about a dozen rosies quietly waiting for the sun to rise. As the light improved for better images, the rosies began flying off to forage one by one. I was hoping that the sun would clear the mangroves quickly enough that I could capture these three in some beautiful golden light without any shadows. Unfortunately, the rosies had other ideas as they were all gone just moments after I took a few images of this trio…and before the sun removed the shadows from their faces and heads.

Roseate Spoonbill

Still, I got some great shots later in the day. The spoonies look great when contrasted against a deep blue sky.

Roseate Spoonbill

I really liked how the light passed through the wings on the image above. A landing show with the wings forward is a photographer’s dream shot. I haven’t been successful in getting that image, but I did like the feather details on this landing shot.

Roseate Spoonbill

You can see the rich colors of their breeding plumage coming in nicely. Breeding season is just around the corner.

Roseate Spoonbill

I have had the opportunity to visit the Viera Wetlands in Viera, Florida twice in the last month. While the overall opportunities are not as good in winters past (there are less ducks wintering at Viera this year), the opportunities to work with the Great Blue Herons has been excellent! There are 5 or 6 pairs of Great Blues building nests on the tops of the palm trees just off the dikes that separate the cells at the wetlands. I have had some great opportunities to watch them bringing in sticks to build the nest, courtship displays and mating. Soon we will have some hungry chicks on the nests that will increase the photography opportunities.

The male of this pair was having an easy day of it. He was stealing sticks from an unattended nest nearby. Click an image to view larger.

Bringing Home the Lumber

After bringing home the lumber, the female would take it and place it in just the right spot in the nest.

I'll Take That!

Of course, some of the sticks were a little too large to be handled in close quarters.

Let Go!!! Please!!!

After bringing home a stick, the male and female would do a little courtship display. You can imagine her expressing her gratitude at bringing home such a fine addition to the home.

Love Is In The Air

If all goes well with the nest building, then we must make something to put in the nest. I found it interesting how the male pushes the females head down with his beak.

Propagating The Species

At the end of the day, I found one of the pair standing watch over the nest to keep interlopers at bay while his/her mate was off to find some dinner.

Standing Watch

On this day, I spent the entire day from sunrise to sunset at Viera. That was a rare opportunity to spend that much time at a location. I really enjoyed the day and look forward to my next visit.

Sunrise at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

One of the things that I came to realize during 2011 is that I have improved my ability to “see” things. By that I mean that I look at nature differently now. I find myself spending more time looking for better angles, spending more time with a subject, and slowing down my workflow when making photos. I used to be in the mindset of “hurry up and take the shot”, thinking that I should move on quickly because I might be missing something. In 2011, I found myself worrying less about what I was missing and concentrating more on what I had right in front of me. This is a good thing.

Gulf Sunset

In wildlife photography, I did a credible job of increasing the number of birds on my life list. This year I added American Widgeon, Canvasback, Great Horned Owl, Cape May Warbler, Nanday Parakeet, Black Tern, Wilson’s Phalarope, Egyptian Goose, Clay-colored Sparrow, Blue-headed Vireo, Acadian Flycatcher, Bufflehead, Horned Grebe, Redhead, Eurasian Widgeon and Common Loon. Unfortunately I don’t have respectable images of all these species to share. I get very excited when I see a new bird in the field, but then I kick myself when I get home and find that I don’t have a decent image of my find. Some of that frustration is because the glimpse of the bird is fleeting, or the conditions extremely poor for a good photo. The real frustration comes from having all the right conditions and plenty of time and still missing the shot.

Common Loon with Shrimp

In June Faith and I made a trip to the St. Petersburg area to visit her father for Father’s Day. While we were there, we took advantage of the Black Skimmer colony that nests on the beach each spring. I was very fortunate to have stopped by for some photography just a couple of days after the chicks started to hatch. I got some of my most memorable images of 2011 from this day.

Black Skimmer Family

In 2011, I met several new friends as well including Jess, Susan, Trisha, Kathy, Mary, Tom, Chris, Eric, Brian, Michael, Roni, Sally, Varsha, Lana and many others. And what year would be complete without a visit from the UK by Graham? We had a great time with Hank and Linda at Blue Cypress Lake in March.

Osprey at Blue Cypress Lake

Unfortunately, 2011 was also the year that we lost a very dear friend, Klaus Peter. His passing in August has left a hole in our lives that we notice every time we go out with the camera.

Faith and I traveled to Chincoteague, VA for a family reunion. It was a great time to visit family and I made the most of the photography while I was there.

Sunrise over Chincoteague Channel.

We also took our annual week’s vacation at Indian Rocks Beach where we enjoyed a quiet, relaxed pace for a week. The photography wasn’t half bad either!

I Hope This Wasn't Important!

I even ventured out of my comfort zone to snap a few pictures when our nieces visited us in July.

Emily, Amy, Torey and Faith

I made my first trip to the Butterfly Rainforest at the University of Florida this year and had a fantastic time! Thanks Nancy for letting me tag along.

Gold-banded Forester

I made a few trips to Fort DeSoto this year, but I think my visit in April was by far the best. All the birds were in their breeding colors, and as you might imagine, they were breeding too! That was a fun time with Klaus, Dan, Alan, Dennis, Kevan, Linda, Jess and Rich.

Royal Terns

Jess let me tag along on a trip to Flagler County to see the Least Tern colony there. While we were there we stopped at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm for my first visit to their rookery. I’m already looking forward to going back up there for both the Least Terns and the Alligator Farm.

Snowy Egret Preening

I hope 2012 provides as many opportunities as I had in 2011. We have a trip planned for the Oregon coast this summer, and I’m really looking forward to that. It will soon be time to start planning this trip. As far as goals for the new year go, my focus will be on improving my photography by taking better pictures in camera and spending less time post processing. I will also work on slowing down and focusing more on what is right in front of me.

Happy New Year!

Sunrise at Circle B Bar Reserve

Burr Marigolds in bloom with "The Tree"

Sunrise was quite nice too as the clouds cooperated to allow for some drama in the sky as well.

The rising sun brings out the beauty of the Burr Marigolds

I hope the marigolds stick around until I can get back out there.

Click an image to view larger.

Perhaps we can talk this out.

One Willet gets a little agitated.

The second Willet becomes somewhat insistent.

The battle begins in earnest.

That's gotta hurt!

Hey! Let go of my leg!

Airborne Assault

A Western Sandpiper finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

One of my dream shots is catching an Osprey diving into the water and coming out with a fish. I’ve captured many Osprey shots in the past. Some have been on nests, some have been with recent hatchlings, and some have been flight shots with and without a fish in the talons. But I had never been successful in being at the right place at the right time to catch one diving and taking flight with prey. Until now.

While we were vacationing in Indian Rocks Beach, FL last month, I would spend the first 2-3 hours of daylight walking the beach and composing shots of anything that moved. I love shorebirds and there were many to choose from that week. On one of these morning walks, I spotted an Osprey circling overhead. Thinking he might be looking for breakfast, I waited him out and was rewarded with a dive and a catch.

Now, trying to catch an Osprey diving and getting the focus and framing just right is pretty tough to do. Even professional photographers will tell you that unless you just happen to have the Osprey already focused and everything lined up properly, catching the dive is very difficult. I guess I’ll need more practice as the shots I fired off while he was diving are all unusable…unless you consider a brown out-of-focus blob as the subject of a photo interesting. But once he hit the water, my camera caught focus and I was able to get him coming out of the water with his breakfast.

Click an image to view larger.

Osprey with his morning catch

I took a whole series of shots as the Osprey lifted out of the water and began to fly away from me. I had no idea at the time if I had good focus and exposure. All you can do is hope you’ve set the camera correctly for the light and keep firing away. The entire encounter lasted less than 5 seconds. By then the Osprey was too far away to keep shooting.

Why do they always fly away from the photographer?

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was no ordinary fish for the Osprey. If you look closely at the next image, you’ll see that there is fishing line and fishing hooks attached to the fish. This was a fisherman’s bait fish that the Osprey had captured. You should be able to see the hooks and line if you click the image.

The fish has two hooks and fishing line attached to it.

This obviously wasn’t a very good day for this particular fish. First he was captured by a fisherman, then he was rigged with hooks and tossed back in the Gulf in hopes a larger fish would eat him. Then he gets grabbed by an Osprey and yanked out of the water again. What else could go wrong?

In this next image, you will see that the Osprey’s left leg is tangled in the fishing line. This is not turning out to be a good day for the Osprey either.

The Osprey's left leg is caught in the fishing line

In this final image, the Osprey is able to free leg from the fishing line. He eventually dropped the fish and flew away unharmed. Since I was shooting the action, I didn’t notice what the fisherman might have been doing. He couldn’t have been too happy watching his bait be taken away. I’m sure he would have gladly given up the fish in order to avoid entangling the Osprey and having to save the bird.

The Osprey freed his left leg and then dropped the fish. He was on his way unharmed.

In hindsight, it would seem to me that the fisherman should have been paying attention and noticed the Osprey circling overhead. I would have thought that he would have reeled in his rig to avoid getting the Osprey entangled in the line. And perhaps he was and the Osprey dove for the fish anyway. This is also a common problem with pelicans too. As they fly by, they are always looking for a fish that might be struggling or separated from the school. Many pelicans have met an untimely demise because they have captured and swallowed a bait rig like this. Once swallowed, the only hope for the pelican would be to reel him in and get him to a bird hospital as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, most fishermen would simply cut the line leaving the pelican to die a slow and horrible death.

I will say that I was quite excited to “find” this sequence when I got home and uploaded the images to my computer. Although I don’t have an image of the Osprey diving yet, I do have a decent one of the Osprey coming out of the water with a fish…even if it is a bait fish. Maybe that makes the encounter that much more exciting.

Recently I upgraded to Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 4.1 after hearing rave reviews from other photographers. I didn’t get a chance to work with it right away, but I finally had some time Wednesday night to try it out. In a word, WOW! I’ve only worked with 2 filters; tonal contrast and detail extractor. But take a look at this image from our trip to Kauai in February 2010. Click the images to view larger on black.

Waimea Canyon, Kauai, HI

I will be reading more about the new Color Efex in the weeks to come and trying out more of the many filters that come with the product. I can already see how these filters can be used to spice up an otherwise dull or boring image. I like to get the image right when I click the shutter, but with these two images, that was tough to do. See these were taken in a helicopter as we flew over Waimea Canyon. Not only was I in a helicopter, but we were flying without doors on the helicopter. There was nothing between me and the bottom of the canyon!! It was very exciting, but the 1 hour tour goes by exceptionally quick. I literally held down the shutter the entire time and just fired off image after image. There was no time to check settings as we were constantly moving and alternating between bright sunshine and shade. It was a lot of fun, but very challenging photographically.

Waimea Canyon, Kauai, HI

Which brings me to why I hate to delete images. This second image would have likely found the recycle bin as I just wasn’t impressed with the image out of the camera. I really don’t like the dark shadows on the left side of the canyon walls. For some reason I decided to hold on to it, so when I was playing around with Color Efex Pro 4.1, I decided to try it out on this image. What a difference! I still don’t think this is my best image of the flight, but had I tossed all the images I didn’t like at the time, I would have lost some that would be pretty good with a little post-processing help. As technology improves and software products like Photoshop and Nik’s Color Efex Pro improve, images that I once thought were not usable suddenly become candidates for a second look. I hear Adobe is coming out with a program that will “fix” out of focus images. I excel at taking out of focus images, so perhaps Adobe’s new product will help me save more images in the future.

The bad news about saving all these images is the amount of disk space it consumes. Currently I am consuming 750 gigabytes of disk storage, so my 1.5 terabyte disks and backup disks are soon to be full. Fortunately 3TB drives are coming down in price, so I figure by January the price will be low enough to consider replacing the 1.5TB drives.

Look for more posts from the archives as I figure out how to work more of these filters. So far it has been well worth the investment.

The event was somewhat free-form so that as many people could attend as possible and allow different schedules to be accommodated. For those who could make it, there was a group that got there early for sunrise. At 9:00am we had a video presentation of Klaus’ work and photos of Klaus doing what he loved most; taking photographs and having fun with friends. After the 1 hour memorial attendees were free to explore the reserve, take pictures, meet new friends and renew old friends. At 2:00pm we went to a local restaurant for lunch and then some of us returned to the reserve for a late afternoon/early evening photo shoot.

My day started out with sunrise and while the sunrise wasn’t as spectacular as some we’ve had before, it certainly had it’s beauty. Click an image to view larger.

Memorial Sunrise

After the sunrise, there was time to catch up with old friends and meet new ones. Due to the number of images in this post, I’ve included smaller versions so the page loads faster. Click on any image to view larger.

Scott explains to Varsha how best to photograph a Coot.

World famous landscape photographer Claudia Domenig with Steven Wildman

Next we all went into the Nature Center to view a slideshow of Klaus’ best images and photos of Klaus.

Klaus' family leads the way into the Nature Center

After the video tribute, we all posed for a group photo. You can see how many people showed up for the event. These were all people that knew Klaus personally or knew of his photography. There is a statement to be made of someone when you have this many people from 2 continents come together to celebrate your life.

Photo Courtesy of Daniel Kaufmann

After the group photo we broke into smaller groups and explored the reserve. For some, this was their first time at Circle B, and while we didn’t see many photo opportunities, I suspect they’ll be back when the conditions are a little better (and the place isn’t overrun with a bunch of rowdy photographers).

Robert, Alan, Debbie and John

Roberto, Heather, John, Debbie, Dan, Varsha, Tom and Chris.

John with the local "wildlife"

Alan, or the "South Florida Wildlife", with the local "wildlife"

Kevan Sunderland showing off his "G.A.T.O.R."

Diana asks "where did everyone go?"

Debbie, Scott, Diana and Dan look hungry. I was too!

Donna and Susan after getting "lost" in the "Circle"

Dan and Donna share a moment after Donna's "rescue"

Marni and Alan share a laugh...and some grapes

Robert, Debbie and Tom return to the Nature Center after a long, but very rewarding day

As much fun as I had, it was a bittersweet day. Klaus would have loved to have been there to see all his friends one last time, but he was with each and every one of us in our hearts and memory. We’ve lost a great friend, but even after he’s gone, he continues to bring people together. He was certainly one of a kind and he is deeply missed by all who knew him.

Photo courtesy of Meg Puente

They say that time heals all wounds and that writing helps to work through the grief. But it still hurts…and this was still tough to get through. Feel free to share your thoughts and comments.