I realized I hadn’t been to Viera Wetlands since last year, so I went over yesterday morning with Kevin K.

We spent a few minutes with The Photographer’s Ephemeris and found a promising sunrise stop along the way.  It’s just north of the first bridge into Cocoa on SR 520.  If you don’t have a copy of this software, you should get it.  It’s available (for free!) for the Mac, PC, and Linux as well as (paid versions) for Android and iOS.  The iPad version is especially helpful.  If you have a cell phone signal, you can use it wherever you are to visualize the natural lighting.  It shows the sun and moon overlaid on a Google Map for the place and time you enter.  Highly recommended.

The sunrise was pretty and there was even a nice bird posing at the end of an old dock for us.

Old pier at sunrise: North of the Hubert Humphrey Causeway in Cocoa, Florida.

When we got to Viera Wetlands, there was more going on  than I thought there would be.  We saw Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, both White and Glossy Ibis, Moorhens, Coots, Limpkins, and Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, among others.  There were even some Roseate Spoonbills there – the first time I’ve ever seen them at Viera Wetlands.  A few Moorhen chicks, surprised me too – I didn’t realize they hatched this time of year.

Moorhen and chick near Ibis: “Kid – I told you not to hang out with those Ibis birds. They’re nothing but trouble”.

You can click on the images above to get to larger versions on Flickr. You can also see more of my Viera Wetlands photos here on Flickr.  For a slightly different perspective, you can also look at Kevin’s photos in his set on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2012, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved