I was planning to post more photos from our recent cruise this weekend.  But after visiting Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge last Friday with Kevin K. and Tom M.  from the Photography Interest Group, I changed my mind.  There’s a great deal of activity there and it’s well worth a blog post (and a visit!).

One of the first birds we watched was a Redish Egret fishing close to shore.  It’s great fun to see these birds dance and pounce.

Reddish Egret and Minnow

I had the Olympus E-M1 Mark II with me and practiced with the “Pro Capture” mode (I brought the right lens this time).  This really helps you catch a decisive moment – it’s almost cheating.  You’d better have a large card in your camera and time to go through all the images, though.  I used low-speed and still had way too many frames.  Here’s one example:

Wood Stork and Minnow

There were a huge number of White Pelicans and they treated us to “air ballet shows” all morning.

Synchronized Flying

We saw several huge fish in the canal along the drive.  Possibly the same kind as in this post from last year.

Several (3 or more?) large fish (carp?) swimming in the canal near the road. These were about two feet long.

And there were more gators visible than usual.  They look well fed – perhaps they’ve been after those large fish.  These monsters stay so still that you can take your time and make a stitched panorama of them. Unless they’re chasing you 🙂

Gator panorama

We also spotted Belted Kingfishers, a Bald Eagle, Osprey, several varieties of duck, a wild pig, and many other interesting things.

You can look at my other photos from MINWR in this album on Flickr.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. There’s a lot going on over there – go see for yourself!

©2017, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved