Category Archives: Merritt Island NWR

Three Spoonbills

December 13, 2020Merritt Island NWRCinnamon Teal, SpoonbillEd Rosack

I made these photos last week while watching several cooperative and close Roseate Spoonbills posing in nice morning light.

Pretty in pink

I’d left my car in the large parking area on the south west corner of Black Point Wildlife Drive (stop 4) and was walking south along the trail toward the observation decks.

Morning stretch

The Spoonbills were in a small opening on the right hand side of the trail almost all the way to the second deck. They were in among a group of birds that included Wood Storks and Ibis. When I first saw them, they were in the shade cast from the mangroves along the path. On my return walk, the sun was high enough to light up that area.

Red, white, and blue

The birds were busy and ignored me as they went about their morning business. With such pretty light coming over my shoulder, all I had to do is wait for an isolated moment, frame them, and click the shutter. Sometimes things come together.

And sometimes they don’t.

I was out there that morning scouting for a Cinnamon Teal that both Jim Boland and Kevin McKinney have found and photographed recently. You can see Kevin’s very nice image on Flickr here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/44542650@N08/50688544146/in/dateposted/

Cinnamon Teal’s are a rarity in Central Florida and would be a life bird for me. Apparently this one’s been a winter visitor at that spot for the last few years. I couldn’t find it but I spoke with someone that’d seen it that morning. It likes to hang out on the east side of the trail, in among many other ducks. A morning photo into the sun might be a challenge so I think I’ll try again one afternoon.

There are lots of birds along Black Point Wildlife Drive right now. If you’ve been waiting to visit there, go ahead and go – it’s a good time. Even if you don’t spot the Cinnamon Teal, there are other things to see and photograph.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog.Take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can – make some photos – even if you don’t spot what you’re searching for.

Spellbinding Stare and Tremendous Talons

November 29, 2020Merritt Island NWRbirds, BPWD, Osprey, wildlifeEd Rosack

Ospreys are common here in Central Florida and actually throughout most of the world. Even though I spot them all the time, I still think they’re fascinating photo subjects.

This bird was already on its perch when I saw it. It looks like it just made a dive and hadn’t finished preening yet.

What’re you lookin’ at?

They’re remarkably well adapted to finding and taking fish out of the water. Their keen eyesight helps them spot prey from on high before plunging in to grab them with opposable talons.

“I think he’ll be to Rome
As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature.”

Shakespeare in Act 4 Scene 5 of Coriolanus

According to Wikipedia, Shakespeare was referring to “a medieval belief that fish were so mesmerised by the osprey that they turned belly-up in surrender”.

Looking at those eyes, it’s no wonder people thought the birds could hypnotize their prey into surrendering. This looks like a piercing stare, but it was really just a passing glance in my direction from about 100 feet away. Luckily, I wasn’t fully under its spell and still managed to make a photo!

And check out the muscles and long curved claws on its feet! It’s hard to imagine even a slippery fish escaping from a grip like this.

A common and totally awesome bird – sovereignty of nature indeed!

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can – make some photos.

A good day in the wild

November 22, 2020Merritt Island NWRBelted Kingfisher, birds, BPWD, landscape, northern flicker, Northern Harrier, panorama, Reddish Egret, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

I made a trip to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge last Thursday. As you probably know, it’s a favorite of mine. I just hope all of you aren’t too tired of me writing about it.

Refuge:

1. Protection or shelter, as from danger or hardship

2 a. A place providing protection or shelter

2 b. An undeveloped area for the preservation of animals and plants.

Retrieved November 22 2020 from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/refuges

I think MINWR lives up to these definitions and I’m grateful that it’s close by and has stayed open. Even as the pandemic here in the USA continues to worsen, a visit there seems very safe to me. Lots of fresh air, with just a few socially distanced people. And interesting landscapes and wildlife to see and photograph – and divert me from the 24/7 news cycle.

Anyway, our weather has been a bit strange here in Central Florida. We’ve had lots of rain showers and strong winds too, so I wasn’t sure what the conditions would be like. My weather app said there’d be some clouds (good for sunrise photos!) so I got up at zero dark thirty and headed over to the St. Johns River boat ramp on HW 50.

A windy morning on the St. Johns River

The air here is still on most mornings. But in this photo you can see nearby grass blowing and the water motion smoothed out from my 3s shutter speed. As I was photographing, an owl swooped in and landed about ten feet away. It only stayed for a few seconds as it looked me over. It was very dark, I was a bit startled, and I didn’t have the right lens on – so I didn’t even try to make a photo. But it was a very cool moment.

When I got to MINWR I made a pass around Black Point Wildlife Drive. Maybe it was too early, but I didn’t see much. Then I went over to drive through Gator Creek Road and it was roped off – I’m not sure why. This page says Catfish Creek and Peacocks Pocket are closed due to hurricane damage, but doesn’t mention Gator Creek Road. Maybe it was because of a rocket launch – we’ve had quite a few recently.

The wildlife photography part of my trip wasn’t going very well. Before I headed home, I decided to go through Black Point one more time and I’m very glad I did. The second pass was much better!

Belted Kingfisher

There are more winter birds showing up now than last time I was there. Kingfisher’s are notoriously flighty, but for some reason this one sat still for me – of course I wish it’d been closer!

Northern Flickers are always a treat. I wasn’t sure that’s what this was until I got home. It was severely back lit and I couldn’t see any detail until I looked at it on the computer (with the shadows slider cranked up).

Northern Flicker

There were several of this next one flying around over the marsh. I was pretty sure they were Northern Harriers – the white rump is distinctive. I don’t see these very often and I enjoyed reading about them when I looked them up again. They hunt with both hearing and sight and have evolved stiff feathers around their ears to help direct the sound. They also have soft feathers elsewhere to reduce their flight noise – leading to their nickname “Gray Ghost”. You can read more at this link: https://www.audubon.org/news/northern-harrier.

Gray Ghost (Northern Harrier)

Here’s one last photo. Reddish Egrets are one of my favorite birds and I usually spot one or two along Black Point. I’m including it because this is the first time I’ve seen one perched up on a branch – they must do this all the time, right? This photo is worth a click to view on Flickr. You should be able to zoom in there with additional clicks to see a lot of up close detail. This post is getting too long or I’d tell you how I made this 40 MP image with my 24 MP camera. Maybe next time.

Pretty Bird

I saw a pair of Bald Eagles, Yellow-rumped Warblers (also winter visitors), a few (far away) Roseate Soonbills, a Red-bellied Woodpecker, Anhingas, Double-Crested Cormorants, Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Black and Turkey Vultures, many Ospreys, gulls and terns, and others too, although I’m sure I missed many. I also saw what might have been a vole scurry across the road. Lucky for it one of those Harriers wasn’t close by.

A good trip. I guess I’m glad Gator Creek Road was closed and I had to make a second pass on Black Point!

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. If you have a National Wildlife Refuge near you, consider exploring it – in a safe, socially distanced way. Take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can – make some photos.

Black & White and Green

November 15, 2020Merritt Island NWRblack and white, Green Heron, landscape, monochrome, pierEd Rosack

Our weather last week was nasty for a few days as tropical storm Eta came through Central Florida. Luckily we were spared severe wind damage or flooding, but it did throw a soggy monkey wrench into my plans to go out and make a some photos. Since I don’t have any new images, I’ll just show you two I like that haven’t been in the blog before.

The first is from a quiet, calm pre-sunrise morning. It was so empty and still that it verged on spooky as I looked around while I waited on several long exposures to finish. It’s a single frame at 24mm, f/5.6, for 20s at ISO 100 and converted to B&W in Lightroom.

There was no one near, that morning by the pier

In this second one, I like the intense concentration of the Green Heron scouting for food as it stalks along the dead branches out over a canal. It’s at 280mm, f/10, for 1/1000s at ISO 1000.

Branching out

That’s it for this week. It’s nice to have a large archive of unused images, but I’ll try to get something new for you next time.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. The rise in Covid cases is getting very scary again. Please, please – stay safe and take care of yourselves and each other. And if you can – make some photos.

A Difference in Scale

October 18, 2020Merritt Island NWR, TechniqueBPWD, Dragonfly, landscape, panorama, reflectionEd Rosack

The master copy of the image below is made from multiple frames that I stitched together into a panorama. It ended up being ~196 megapixels. I used a 70mm lens, so the equivalent focal length is about 35mm. Looking at it another way, the tree line along the horizon is probably a couple of miles in length.

A calm, cloudy morn

Especially at this time of year, if you can zoom in to almost any image like this you’ll see dragonflies moving around or perched on leaves. Look closely at this crop from near the center of the first image and you can just make out two of them resting on reeds.

The next photo is a single frame I made a few minutes earlier with another camera / lens at ~1400mm eq. focal length.

Four-Spotted Pennant (?)

So in terms of lens magnification, it’s about a 40x zoom. In terms of distance shown, it’s a few inches vs. a couple of miles or ~20,000 times smaller. Either way, quite a change in scale and two unique ways to show the environment and inhabitants.

By the way, the header image at the top of the post is this same one rendered in B&W. It’s a little more abstract, but I like that version too. If you’d like to see the un-cropped frame, I posted it on flickr at this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/50499722736/in/photostream/.

Exploring an environment at a variety of scales can reveal interesting scenes and details. Especially if a dragonfly tilts its wings just right in the light.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. Please stay safe and take care of each other. And if you can, make some photos – at different scales.

What is that?

October 11, 2020Merritt Island NWRbirds, BPWD, circle of life, Cormorant, Fish, infrared, landscape, panorama, rainbow, wildlifeEd Rosack

As I was starting home from Merritt Island National Wildlife refuge yesterday morning, I decided to make one last stop along the causeway. Looking around, I noticed something in the distance rolling around in the water. I couldn’t tell what it was and I wasn’t carrying the long lens, so I walked over to the car to get it. I thought it’d be gone by the time I got back but it wasn’t. This is the first image I made:

What it that?

I still couldn’t see it really well in the view finder. I thought it might be a manatee’s head or maybe even part of a dolphin. Then I saw this:

Cormorant vs. fish

So now I knew what it was! The bird struggled for several minutes trying to swallow that huge fish. It would hold it under water for a while (changing its grip?) before bringing it back up in the air. It eventually got it arranged just right and managed to get it all down. This was the fish’s final view of things – Circle of Life.

Eye to eye

The weather on this trip was somewhat unusual. I almost always go over there in the mornings. One reason why is that it hardly ever rains early in the day. Most of our rain comes down in afternoon thunderstorms. But this time there was a big downpour as I drove around Black Point Wildlife Drive and even a rainbow!

Wetland rainbow

Overall, birds are still a bit scarce out there. I did see some of our usual ones including Pie Billed Grebes, a Red-shouldered Hawk, Ospreys, Great and Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Tri-colored and Little Blue Herons, Mourning Doves, Common Gallinules, American Coots, a few gulls and terns, Anhingas, and (of course) Cormorants. And Jim Boland reports that there are two Bald Eagles hanging out near stop 11 on BPWD although I wasn’t looking for them and didn’t spot them. I also saw a few fast, un-identified tiny birds (UTBs?), a Belted Kingfisher, and some Blue-winged Teals – so maybe more winter visitors will arrive soon.

I’ll leave you with one more photo from the trip. I stitched this together from 21 frames made with my IR modified camera. I’m not sure who / what left that vehicle track there – maybe rangers doing some maintenance? Seems like a great place to get stuck. Anyway I think this gives you an idea of the landscape in the area.

Black Point vista: Monochrome, IR, stitched panorama

You can view many more of my Merritt Island National Wildlife photos in this album on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/albums/72157627776386723. And you can scroll for a long time through posts on this blog about MINWR and Black Point Wildlife Drive at this link: https://edrosack.com/category/photo-ops-in-florida/merritt-island-national-wildlife-refuge/

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. I hope you all are staying safe, and taking care of yourselves, your friends, and your families. And if you don’t recognize something, keep watching – you might get a photo out of it!

Not so punny

September 20, 2020Merritt Island NWRblack and white, BPWD, Dolphin, Gator Creek Road, landscape, monochrome, panorama, reflection, sun rays, sunrise, wildlifeEd Rosack

Sometimes, I try to be clever and people ignore me – which may be a good thing.

I noticed a Bottlenose Dolphin making a fuss hunting for fish – big splashes and noise. I was too slow to catch that ruckus, but a few minutes later I made this photo as it swam through calm water in front of colorful early morning reflections on Gator Creek and left interesting patterns in its wake.

A wake at dawn

I posted it to Flickr and expected people to moan about the pun in the title, but crickets about that. Maybe it would have worked better as “Awake at dawn”. Dunno. I suppose I should leave the comedy to professionals. At least I didn’t get a bunch of nasty comments about it!

Here are two more images from that trip. This one is nearby, about 15 minutes earlier.

Restful rays, distant clouds, and a calm creek

And this one is two hours later, along Black Point Wildlife Drive.

Clouds over the marsh

My drive to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge was rewarding once again and well worth the time. No wonder it’s a favorite place for me!

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. I hope all of you are staying safe – take care of yourselves, your friends, and your families. And if you can, make some photos, and even some bad puns!

Web host issues

August 30, 2020Merritt Island NWRbirds, BPWD, Ibis, landscape, reflection, Snowy Egret, wildlifeEd Rosack

Editors note: The blog has been up and down all morning. My hosting provider (inmotionhosting.com) says they’re having “connection issues”. I couldn’t even get a chat window to open with their support team – frustrating!

It’s back on line right now so I’m going to take this opportunity to quickly post something. Just a photo I like – I hope you like it too. And I hope my blog stays on line so you can see it!

Ibis and Egret

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Hang in there, cherish your friends and loved ones, and take care of each other. And if you can – make some photos!

Another storm and a couple more birds

August 23, 2020Merritt Island NWRBPWD, landscape, lightning, long exposure, Reddish Egret, Spoonbill, stormEd Rosack

Yay -this week I did “get out and make some new photos”! However, these images I came home with are of the same subjects that I photographed in our yard and posted about last week: A storm and two birds. It’s almost like there’s something strange and metaphysical going on (– probably not).

First the storm:

Light show across the water

I set out very early Thursday towards Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge with no clear idea about where I’d try to photograph sunrise. I noticed a few flashes of lightning off across the river and stopped under the causeway to watch for a minute. I ended up staying longer and making a series of 15 – 30 second exposures. Most just show a dark cloud, but I caught a few mid-strike. I was glad I had my “go-to landscape lens” on the camera. It’s a 24 -105 mm and had the reach I needed to show off these far away clouds. My second most used landscape lens is a 16 -35 mm and wouldn’t have worked as well.

Pretty in Pink

There was a lot of water around Black Point Wildlife Drive and it seemed like there are a few more birds now than there have been recently. This was the only Roseate Spoonbill I saw anywhere that morning. I wish it had been a little closer (I always wish that). On the other hand, it was a very calm bird and posed nicely as I tried to make a good image. I like the fall looking colors on the vegetation around the pond. Maybe soon we’ll have some cooler weather.

Pretty light on a Reddish Egret in flight

I’ve often seen a Reddish Egret hanging out on the first half of Black Point. This time there were several of them on the second half. I think the light on this one flying by in front of me is very nice.

Anyway, although these are the same subjects as last week they are very different images. I think they’re worth posting. I hope you like them too.

You can view some of my other storm and cloud photos in this folder on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/albums/72157655291985133.

And I have many Merritt Island National Wildlife images collected in this one: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrosack/albums/72157627776386723.