Tag Archives: sunrise

Review and Reprocess

Sometimes after a photo shoot, I’ll skip over images if I’m short on time or something looks too hard to deal with.  Other times, I may play with a photo for a while and then set it aside when I just can’t seem to get it right.  When I learn a new technique or get a new software package or upgrade I try to go through my image library and pick out existing photos that could benefit from the new capability.  And yes, I also notice images that no longer look as good to me as they did at first.  Something I did a few years ago may have seemed great then – but tastes change.

I use Lightroom to catalog my photos and I have a keyword called “Process” with three sub-keywords “Color”, “pano”, and “other”.  Using these, I mark photos I want to revisit and I’ve built up a collection of them for future processing.  I had a little time this week to go through and pick three to work on:

Reflections at Kelly Park
Kelly Park Reflections:  Merritt Island, Florida, February 19, 2013. The water was amazingly calm that morning and I like the reflections as well as the detail / lights on the horizon.  I  bypassed this image at first because of trouble with the white balance.  This time through the result is much closer to the look I wanted.

Main Sanctuary of the Cathedral Basilica
The Main Sanctuary of the Cathedral Basilica, Saint Augustine, Florida, February 28, 2013.  Black and white infrared.  I don’t remember why I didn’t finish this photo back in February.  I like the light, detail, and tonality.

Three more cypress trees
Three more cypress trees:  Blue Cypress Lake, near Fellsmere, Florida, June 2, 2012. False color infrared.  Since IR doesn’t capture color as your eye sees it, color conversions are very subjective.  As I gain experience, my tastes are changing.  This version is very different from how I processed other IR photos at the time.

So, some recommendations:

  • If you’re struggling with an image, don’t delete it.  Mark it and move on.  Come back and revisit it later.
  • Organize, document, and keyword your images so you can find hidden gems to re-process.
  • Review your photo library occasionally.  Your photography skills and tools aren’t static.  So your portfolio shouldn’t be static either.  Revise older images and make them better.  You might be surprised what comes out of your archives.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go revise some photos!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Topaz ReStyle Mini Review

Topaz released a new plug-in recently, called ReStyle.  You can download any of their products for a free thirty-day trial, so I thought I’d give it a go.  This isn’t a full review or tutorial (I haven’t used it long enough for either of those).  But I have used it a bit so I’ll try to introduce you to some possibilities with three examples I’ve played with.  If you want to see the “before” versions, I’ve included them towards the end of the post.

I had trouble with the white balance in this photo of Marineland beach at dawn.  I could have separately adjusted the color balance on the sky and ground using layer masks in Photoshop or gradients in Lightroom.  Instead, it was easy to pick out this version from the grid displayed inside ReStyle.  It’s interesting how   remapping changed the color in the beach and rocks differently from the sky.

Down on the beach at dawn

Down on the beach at dawn (after Topaz ReStyle).

ReStyle maps color and tone statistics from a selected style to a target image.  It seems like Photoshop’s “Image/Adjustments/Match Color” command.  When you do this in Photoshop, you have to supply an image with the colors you’re trying to match.  ReSyle comes with over 1000 presets and provides control / adjustment of the results that aren’t easily available in Photoshop.   There are so many presets that they’re overwhelming, but ReStyle breaks them down into collections (e.g. “Landscape”), and you can mark your favorites.   You can show a collection or your favorites as a grid applied to your photo, which makes choosing one very simple.  You can also search for  similar styles by color or by name.  Within each style, you can further adjust the hue, saturation, and luminance of the five colors in each style, as well as the opacity, original image “Texture” strength, and others variables.  It also includes mask / selections controls to apply the effects selectively.  There’s a lot more info available in the manual at this link.

In this photo of some struggling trees on a small rocky island near Haulover Canal, I wanted a more dramatic color palette.  Once again, it was easy to pick out this version from a grid of possibilities.

Survivors
Survivors (after Topaz ReStyle)

For this infra-red photo of sea oats on the beach that I made in Fred Howard Park near Tampa , I wanted a different look from a typical IR false color image.  I like this color mapping I found in ReStyle .
Sea oats

Sea oats – False color infra-red (After Topaz ReStyle)

There are so many presets, options and adjustments that ReStyle can be a little overwhelming.  It’s not hard to use, but it is hard to grasp all the possibilities and decide what to do.  It’ll take a bit more time for me to get comfortable with it, so I’ll have to play with it some more.

For comparison purposes, here are versions of the photos before I applied Topaz ReStyle:

__D8C4109_HDR_Ed-Rosack
Before:  Down on the beach at dawn.

_P8110813_Ed-Rosack

Before: Survivors

Sea oats

Before:  Sea oats – False color infra-red processing.

Summary:  Do you have to use plug-ins?  Of course not, but they’re useful and save time.  And ReStyle seems to offer something I haven’t seen elsewhere.  It’ll definitely make your images look different.  Are they better?  I think ReStyle improved these three images, but only you can decide for your photos.  Will this fix all of your problems and should you use it on every photo?    Definitely not  – I’m new to the tool, but on several photos I tried, I couldn’t get anything that I thought looked good.  But it does look like something that’ll be good to have in your bag of tricks.

Off topic public service announcement:  I’m always telling you to get out and enjoy nature.  I also need to remind you to protect yourself from the sun.  I had two skin cancers removed last week.  I’m fine – but it’s not the most pleasant thing to go through.  And it can be much, much worse than mine were.  So when you’re out in the sun enjoying nature, please protect yourself.  Use sunscreen, wear a hat and long sleeves, stay in the shade as much as possible, etc.  The sun is brutal, especially in Florida.  And no one wants to suffer the consequences of too much exposure ten or twenty years down the road.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!  And use sunscreen!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

St. Augustine, Florida and vicinity – photo hints

Lynn was out-of-town last week at the Pressing Iron & Trivet Collectors of America Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. I talked her into letting me out of my spousal support services subcontract, so I had a chance to sneak in a few days of photography while she was away. I spent the time in St. Augustine, Florida, which is “the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement and port in the continental United States”. I’ve written about it many times (see this link) and it’s one of my favorite places to photograph. Photo ops abound and include landscapes, architecture, street scenes, beaches, historic landmarks, wildlife, and much more. It’s hard to go anywhere in the area and not come back with a photo! Here are some of mine along with hints on how I made them.
There are some wonderful sunrise and sunset spots. Friends told me about Marineland Beach (thanks Kevin M. and JT) which is just a little south of St. Augustine. It’s now one of my new favorites. The coquina rocks there worked really well as foreground objects in my photos.

Long exposure sunrise

Long exposure sunrise – Marineland Beach, Florida

This is a single exposure, made through a Hoya ND400 filter right after sunrise. The waves were coming in around me, but I stood my tripod on one of the rocks to keep us dry. I used my lowest ISO setting (50) and even with the sun in the frame, the 8 2/3 stop ND filter gave me a 14 second exposure at f/8 . The long shutter speed makes the water surface contrast nicely with the rock texture.

One thing you’ll run into in Florida on summer mornings is condensation. It’s so humid that if you take your camera gear directly from your air-conditioned room or car out into the moist air, you can expect 15 to 30 minutes of fog before they clear. You can decrease this by not running your car’s AC on the way. You can also seal your camera and lens in a plastic bag with as much air removed as possible until it warms up. And it’s a good idea to bring along a micro-fiber cloth to remove condensation if needed. The larger your camera / lens is, the longer it will take to warm up. This is one time that good glass works against you – at least until the temperature equalizes. One more point: try not to change lenses under these conditions. If water condenses on your sensor, it can be hard to remove and may cause dust to adhere to the surface.

The harbor and fort (Castillo de San Marcos) also provide interesting detail for sunrise or sunset and landscapes in general.

A calm morning in the St. Augustine harbor.
A calm morning in the St. Augustine harbor: Clouds to the north over the Castillo de San Marcos and the quarter Moon above the Bridge of Lions add interesting detail to this image.

This photo and the next were both multi-shot panoramas made with the techniques I described last week. Images like the harbor scene can be tough to blend due to smooth gradients in the sky and water. Be sure you check carefully and correct any glitches.

Another thing about summer in Florida: We have awesome afternoon thunderstorms. Clouds add a lot of drama to photos, but the storms were so bad on two of the days I was there that I couldn’t go out for sunset. Plan accordingly.

St. Augustine Sunset
St. Augustine Sunset behind the Castillo de San Marcos

On this evening at the fort, there was a large thunder-storm to the west. The sky wasn’t colorful at all until the sun moved down below the thunder head, resulting in these shadows and rays. One big advantage of sunset photography vs. sunrise is that you can wait to see what develops. At sunrise, you need to be in place extremely early to see all the variations happen.

I had a great time walking around the fort at sunset with my large tripod and big DSLR camera. Most people were oblivious and walked right through my photos (I don’t blame them – I don’t own the place).  I’d wait for a clear spot in the traffic and make another exposure. Other folks stood next to me since they thought wherever someone with a big camera is has to be a good spot. At one point, a tour guide in a pirate costume leading a group of 20 or so people saw me and stopped his group from walking in front of me until I finished my exposure. It turned out he’s a photographer too.

I wanted to try a night photo of the lighthouse. I also wanted to capture the look of the beam coming out of the light. This turned out to be a tough assignment. The contrast range is huge and there’s a lot of glare from the lights in the scene.

St. Augustine Light Station
St. Augustine Light Station

I ended up merging two exposures. The first one was long (f/4 @ 3 seconds) at a low ISO (400) to decrease noise. The slow shutter blurred the light beam, so I made a second exposure (ISO 3200, f/4 @ 0.4 seconds) and this stopped the beam enough to highlight it. The second exposure had some noise, but was fine with a bit of post processing before I blended the two manually in Photoshop.  I made this photo about an hour before sunrise. It was dark and there was no one around. One of my contacts on Flickr commented that spooky things happen in this area. I’m glad I didn’t notice any when I was there.

Tom M. met me up there on one of the days and we spent several hours just walking around. There were many interesting scenes, and I never saw any two doors  alike.

Red door #33
Red door #33

We were walking down one street and saw someone in the distance photographing this house with his iPhone. He was really working it, making multiple photos / compositions and was still there when we arrived several minutes later. We waited for him to finish and when he looked up and noticed us he asked what kind of cameras we had. It turned out he’s a photographer too and was there on vacation, but forgot his Nikon D3S DSLR. He said using the iPhone was “very liberating”. Photo hint 101: If someone’s taking a picture, look at what he’s photographing – it might be interesting. Photo hint 102: Don’t forget your camera.

A little later, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this waiter zipping through traffic on the way to work.  On a skate board.  I managed to make a quick photo.

Morning commute
Morning commute – very eco-friendly

We also noticed this person reading on the bench.  I really liked the symmetry of the columns and how they led my eye towards the subject. Tom posted a different composition (sorry – no longer available) that I think is really good too.

Reading
Reading.

By the way, if you have Lightroom 5, try out the “Upright” settings in the Lens Corrections panel on photos like the one above. It does a great job squaring things up.

Like I said, there’s a tremendous amount of photo-ops in the area. I didn’t make it by the St. Augustine Alligator Farm on this visit, but from March to June, it’s one of the best places in Florida to photograph a variety of wild birds nesting in the rookery there.  I also didn’t get to Fort Matanzas.  It’s a little south of the city and makes a nice side excursion. The Nombre de Dios Mission in the northern part of the city has a beautiful chapel and grounds as well as a view into the harbor.  And I’m sure that there are a great many more photo ops that I still have to discover in this beautiful place.

You can see these photos larger if you click on them and I have many others from St. Augustine in this set on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Merritt Island Sunrise

Just a quick post today. I haven’t done a sunrise in a while, so Kevin M. and I got up early this morning for a quick trip over to MINWR. The sky was very plain at first with some fog and very high humidity. But as dawn developed, a few clouds moved in and this was the scene right after sunrise. If you look at a larger version (click on it to go to Flickr), you can just see the alligator in the middle distance that swam into the sun reflections as I pressed the shutter.

An alligator wimming through sunrise at East Gator Creek Road
An alligator swimming through sunrise at East Gator Creek Road, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida.

After sunrise, we continued on Gator Creek Road and saw a few of the regular birds, but nothing too unusual. It was the same story on Black Point Wildlife Drive. Things are a bit slow over there at this time of year.

I hope all of you are doing well. Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Some Blog Housekeeping Info

Today’s entry is just a few notes about the blog.  First:  A photo. This is unrelated really to the subject of this post, but we can’t have a post without a photo – can we? This is from Melbourne Beach, Florida on the morning after the Turtle walk.

He wants to see the sunrise

Smell the sea, sense the sand, and see the sun rise

Second:  If you’re reading the blog using Google’s Reader RSS service or an app or web page that uses it to sync, then you should know that Google is stopping Reader as of tomorrow.  There are several alternatives.  You can subscribe via email (use the button at the top right), visit using your browser once or twice a week, or adopt a new RSS reader.  I’m trying out “The Old Reader“.  There’s an IOS app called “Feeddler” that can sync with it.  Several others are available too and will come up if you Google “Google Reader alternatives”.

Third:  I’ve been behind updating the blog’s Table of Contents page, but I’ve caught up now.  If you’ve never looked at it, please check it out.  I think it’s a great resource on Central Florida (and other) Photo Ops.

Fourth:  I’ve also been very behind keeping my Birding life list up to date.  I still haven’t caught up on this, but it should be done later this week.  It’ll have a few new (for me) birds from earlier this year and will be re-organized and sorted to align with the ABA bird checklist.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Central Florida Summer Sights

One of the great things about photography is that it gets you up and out there. You may not see anything if you go – but if you don’t go you definitely won’t ever see anything.  Here are a few photos of what I saw around Central Florida this week.

I made this first one about a half hour before dawn along Gator Creek Road in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.  The low tide had uncovered these rocks, so I used my ultra wide-angle, rectilinear lens and lowered my tripod to emphasize them.  This is a single exposure, processed in Lightroom and Photoshop.  I also tried out the new Topaz Clarity filter.  It seems to do a good job enhancing contrast without introducing halos.

Quiet morning
Quiet morning

The word “parhelion” comes from the Greek for “beside the sun”.  They’re also called sundogs and are always 22 degrees away from and at the same elevation as the sun.  They’re most visible when the sun is low and the sky is darker – dawn or dusk.  I like to watch for them and I thought it was nice of this kayaker to pose with one for me.  I was lucky that I’d already shifted to my long lens to make bird photos.  I needed the reach for this composition.

Early start
Early start – Kayak fisherman paddling underneath a sundog.

There were several dolphins also fishing in this area.  I could see the fish jumping and the dolphins seemed to catch a lot of them.

Fishing Dolphin
Fishing Dolphin

I stopped by Orlando Wetlands Park briefly and it was very scenic despite the cloud cover.  I liked the pathways the birds made through the vegetation in this scene.

Morning marsh
Morning marsh – A cloudy morning in Orlando Wetlands, just after dawn

This time of year, there’s not as much bird activity as in the spring.  Orlando Wetlands was pretty quiet and so was MINWR.  But there are still some regulars around and it’s nice to watch their antics.

Killdeer nest on the ground.  When a predator gets close, they pretend to have a broken wing and try to draw the predator away from the nest.  I watched this one perform and when it finished it turned around to peek back at me and check if it was working.  It did – I didn’t bother its nest.

Killdeer checks me out
Killdeer checks me out

I don’t know how many times I’ve driven by the remains of this dock on the right side of the causeway leading into MINWR – but I never noticed it before.  When I was leaving the other day, I finally saw it.  It was a quick thing, almost subconscious.  I actually drove on by before I processed what I saw and turned around.  I’m very glad I stopped – it doesn’t look like it will last much longer.  By the  time I made this photo, the light was pretty bright.  I used a neutral density filter to slow down my shutter speed and tried several focal lengths / compositions.  I like this one the best.  A B&W conversion using Nik Silver Effects seemed to fit the scene.  In the future, I need to be more observant.  What else is out there I’ve missed?

Old dock
Old dock

You can click on these photos to see larger versions on Flickr.  And you can see more from Merritt Island in this set on Flickr, and from Orlando Wetlands in this set.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – get up, get out there, be observant, and make some photos!
©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Central Florida Zoo (Sanford)

I hadn’t been to the Central Florida Zoo in Sanford, Florida since early 2007 and Tom M. had some new gear he wanted to try – so we decided to visit  this week.    Here’s a few photos I made along with some photo hints.

River Otter

The River Otter exhibit was fun.  If you’re patient and the otter’s in the mood, you can make a nice image of it swimming.  Up your ISO to get a fast shutter speed and get close to the glass to block reflections.  Then press the button right  before “the moment”.

One of our Photography Interest Group members, Jeff S. has a write-up about the zoo on his blog:   http://www.firefallphotography.com/central-florida-zoo/.  There’s some good info and photos there – well worth a read.

Macaw
Macaw – Many zoos have these very photogenic birds around.  They’re good posers!

Photography at this zoo can be challenging.  Many of the animals are behind glass or wire mesh fences, and far away or in bad light.   You’ll need to look for situations where you have a clear view of the animals and if you’re patient they’ll often come closer.  You can also try the standard techniques i.e. Use wide open apertures to blur the fencing;  Hold your lens close to the glass or use your hands to block reflections; etc.

Snake eyes
Snake eyes – Albino Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake.  The “herpetarium” is dark.  I didn’t bring a flash, but If I had, I might have tried using it (held out to the side to avoid reflections).  The snakes don’t normally move fast – in this case I braced my camera so I could use a slow shutter speed (I also didn’t bring a tripod).

Busy Bee
Busy Bee – There are a lot of pretty plantings and flowers at the zoo. I made this photo in the Butterfly Garden area.

And one last photo – we went by the marina in Sanford before going to breakfast and then the zoo.  It’s a nice place for sunrise.

I'm glad I got up early
I’m glad we got up early

As usual, you can click on these photos to go to Flickr, where you can see larger versions.  You can also see a few more photos from the Central Florida Zoo in this set on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!
©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Viera Wetlands update, 5/18/13

I went over to the coast yesterday with Kevin M.Kevin K.Lutfi E.

Sunrise sure is happening really early again!  We started out on the 520 Causeway near Port Canaveral – Kevin M. wanted to make a sunrise photo with a lit up cruise ship in the scene.  Here’s how my version turned out:

Disney cruise ship at dawn

Disney cruise ship at dawn – Port Canaveral, Florida

We also moved around looking for other compositions and I think each of us also made an image of this:

Beneath the Bridge
Beneath the Bridge – 520 Causeway looking east

After sunrise we moved down A1A to explore Lori Wilson Park and the boardwalk there.  It’s very nice and located right on the beach.  Migratory birds have been reported there, but we didn’t find any on Saturday.

Our last stop was Viera Wetlands.  We wanted to check on it because we hadn’t been by since February.  We saw a few of the common wading birds, some juvenile Anhingas, Ospreys, Coots, Glossy Ibis (that we hoped were White Faced Ibis – but weren’t), lots of Grackles, and a few other species.  We also took a turn around the Click Ponds where we found a relatively uncommon Black Crowned Night Heron.  Kevin M. managed a good photo when it came out of the reeds for a few seconds.

Black Crowned Night Heron

Black Crowned Night Heron (Photo by Kevin McKinney, used with permission)

This wasn’t our most productive or exciting trip ever, but we did have a good time.  The activity was slow – I think we’re starting to get into the summer birding slow down here in Central Florida.  We may need to look for a few different photo ops for the next few months.

You can read other Central Florida Photo Ops blog posts about Viera Wetlands from this link.  And I’ve collected other photos from there in this set on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Merritt Island – April 10, 2013

A couple of weeks ago, I met photographer Larry Jordan at Gatorland and he mentioned wanting to visit Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. He hadn’t been in long while, so I offered to go with him. It was a great excuse to get out and show off one of my favorite places and it didn’t disappoint. We met before dawn at Space View park for what turned into a pretty sunrise.

Dock at dawn

Dock at dawn

After sunup, we entered MINWR in search of wildlife, first to Gator Creek Road where we saw a few birds including black necked stilts. These unusual looking, pink legged birds are only in Florida for the summer breeding season and I’m glad they’re back already. Next we went to Black Point Wildlife Drive to see what was going on there. The initial portion was very quiet, but then the action ramped way up!

Four more black necked stilts were flying all around the first pond on the right. They were very active and noisy in what I think was courtship inspired chasing and calling to each other. We enjoyed watching and photographing them, but decided we’d better move on – we didn’t want to miss out on whatever else was going on. It turns out that was a very good idea.

At the next pond, the first thing I noticed was a flock of White Pelicans. They were pretty, but a bit far off for photos – and just swimming around out there feeding. Then we noticed the Black Skimmers.

I often see these birds along the north shore of the Bennet Causeway leading into MINWR. There, they usually huddle with the gulls and this makes for static looking photos. We didn’t see any there yesterday morning and we found out why at this place. It seems they were all over there and very active. I’ve never seen so much skimming. Long graceful glides over flat water with an uncluttered background, sometimes fairly close to shore. They use their longer, lower bills to slice through the surface searching for fish and write a sharp wake behind them. Wonderful to watch and with such good light, a near perfect opportunity for photographs.

Black Skimmer skimming
Black Skimmer skimming

There were other birds in the pond feeding and flying around close to shore – great conditions for BIF (Birds-in-Flight) photography practice! Several Roseate Spoonbills flew in (toward the camera for a change!) and posed beautifully at nearly perfect angles. We also enjoyed watching a Redish Egret, a very pretty Tri-colored Heron in breeding colors, and many other birds feeding.

Roseate Spoonbill, landing
Roseate Spoonbill, landing

After the excitement at BPWD, I didn’t think it could get any better, but I was hoping to show Larry a Florida Scrub Jay since he hadn’t photographed one before. We drove to Scrub Ridge Trail, parked and walked north along the path where I’ve seen them, but they weren’t there. Feeling a little let down, we walked back to the parking area and a very pretty Scrub Jay was waiting there to welcome us. We each got several photos in different poses / locations.

Our last stop was the Visitor Center. I was hoping that the Painted Buntings would still be around, but they seem to have moved on.

By the way, the 50th anniversary of MINWR is coming up on August 28th. If someone ever asks you about benefits from the US space program, you can mention the establishment of this extraordinary refuge. See this article in Wikipedia for more details.

I’ve rambled on for too long so here’s one more landscape from the morning to close this out:

Dock and pier at dawn
Dock and pier at dawn, IR B&W

I had a great time showing Larry around the area and he brought a lot of photo-luck with him! You can click on any of the photos above to see larger versions. You can also see more photos from MINWR in this set on Flickr, Black Point in this set, Birds in this set, and Florida Landscapes in this set. And I have many older posts on the site about MINWR – you can browse through them from this link. Larry posts to Smugmug and you can see his bird photos (including ones from this trip) at this link.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos! And take a friend!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.

Viera Wetlands – February 19, 2013

Most people just call the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands near Viera, Florida “Viera Wetlands”, although I’m sure they mean no disrespect to Mr. Grissom.  I hadn’t been there in a while, and since it’s one of my favorite places I took a trip down to check on things last week – it didn’t disappoint.

On the way, I stopped by Kelly Park in Merritt Island for sunrise.  I’m not sure if this Great Blue Heron was really getting ready to fish, or just enjoying the beautiful, pre-sunrise light, but I was glad it waded into my photo.

The early birds get the fish
The early birds get the fish – Looking east over the Banana River from Kelly Park in Cocoa, just before dawn.

At Viera Wetlands, I got to watch this otter’s antics as it enjoyed a dirt bath in the road:

River Otter dust bath
River Otter dust bath – I watched it rolling around in the dirt on the road for a while. When it had enough, it stood up, shook itself off, and moved back into the water.

I also watched this scene and although I felt badly for the frog, I guess I should feel good for the bird:

This doesn't end well for the frog.
Hooded Merganser catches frog at Viera Wetlands – This doesn’t end well for the frog.

I don’t see Green Herons as often as some of the other herons and egrets, so it was nice to watch a number of them in the reeds along the sides of the berms.  This pose is typical of one of their hunting techniques.  They’ll perch frozen on the water’s edge and wait for prey to come within striking distance.  Green Herons are reportedly one of the smartest birds.  I haven’t seen the behavior, but they’re said to drop small bits of food or insects onto the water to attract fish.

Concentration
Concentration – A Green Heron stalks its prey.

Viera is a great place to see Great Blue Herons courting, nesting, and raising young and there are several pairs active now.  I saw one nest with very small chicks already hatched.  I also saw many of the regulars there including alligators, Great Egrets, Tri-color Herons, Scaups, Coots, Red-winged Blackbirds, and others.  On the way out I also took a turn around the Click ponds, but didn’t notice anything I hadn’t already found in the main areas.  A great trip and well worth the time!

Click on the photos to go to Flickr, where you can see larger versions (the otter photo especially where you can see all the dirt it’s flung around) .  You can also see more photos from Viera Wetlands in this set on Flickr.  And I have many older posts about Viera Wetlands  – you can look through them from this link.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

©2013, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.