A tribute to the osprey

William Bartram was a naturalist who explored the Florida area and wrote about it in his book "Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, etc.", published in 1791. I learned about his book from a list of favorite books read by Jeff Klinkenberg, a writer for the St Petersburg Times. Klinkenberg writes some of the best Florida stories. I found an electronic version of the book "The Travels of William Bartram" and no further than page 63 I found one of the best descriptions of the osprey and the eagle. The first paragraph describes the eagle, the second paragraph describes the osprey:

"The bald eagle is likewise a large, strong, and very active bird, but an execrable tyrant: he supports his assumed dignity and grandeur by rapine and violence, extorting unreasonable tribute and subsidy from all the feathered nations."

"The last of this race I shall mention is the falco piscatorius, or fishing-hawk: this is a large bird, of high and rapid flight; his wings are very long and pointed, and he spreads a vast sail, in proportion to the volume of his body. This princely bird subsists entirely on fish, which he takes himself, scorning to live and grow fat on the dear earned labours of another; he also contributes liberally to the support of the bald eagle."

An eagle is an impressive bird and when I have the opportunity to photograph it, I take it. On the other hand, it is the osprey that has commanded my respect and admiration the most. Of so many birds that I love, the osprey is my favorite next to the brown pelican; not just for photography, but as a constant companion on my Everglades trips (as is the brown pelican). While I do see several other birds often, the osprey's presence is consistent and it is always a joy to hear its melancholy call, telling me I am near a nest. I believe that Bartram described this bird perfectly.

Recently at Flamingo, I was able to get rather close to an active osprey nest and the mother allowed me a brief glimpse of a nestling, my first siting. Often, I see osprey flying overhead with a fish in claws or nesting materials in mouth. However way I can capture this magnificent fish hawk, I try. Enjoy these photos of one of south Florida's best birds, the osprey.

I almost forgot to add the following; recently I learned of a webcam on a nesting osprey. As of this writing, two of her 3 eggs have hatched. Enjoy the live action here.

From my window

I never thought it possible, but I photographed through my second floor window, which was not too dirty having been cleaned recently. Often, during the early sunlit morning as I sit at my desk working, I look through this window. For the past few months, I noticed several spiny orb weaver webs built between two large trees,square in front of me at eye level. The morning sun provides a back light such that I can more closely observe the spider and its silky orb expanding 1-2 ft across.

A few days ago, I took interest in a couple of them. One was building or rebuilding its web, having only 3 or 4 outer circles completed. The background from my view (slightly above the spiders) is messy, consisting of buildings, grass, shrubs and trees, water and the reflections of these objects in the water. Oh yes, and ducks. With a wide enough aperture, these objects will blur out as most of them were several dozen feet away. Lighting was tricky however, with shadows and highly lit areas competing with each other.

At any rate, I set up my exposure to brighten the web and spider as much as possible and keep the background consistent and dark. I began composing, with window between me and my subject.To get an even background, I had to negotiate around my desk and computer, and had only a narrow range to work with. From the following two photos, you can see the progress made by this busy spider.


The next day, I noticed that the same little spider was rebuilding its web. Next to it was its neighbor that had a larger web. It also appeared to be doing some maintenance work on it. The next two images demonstrate some of this work.


The spider's web requires some support lines that shoot out from the center through the orb, and it appeared that she was rebuilding these, as seen here.


Soon, she was back in her center resting spot, with full support.

For post processing, I cropped only some of these photos, particularly the images of the larger spider that showed up so well in the back light. I also liked the light reflecting on the web, so I used some curve work to lighten the lights while maintaining a dark background as much as possible. No cloning or noise reduction were used on these photos. As Dorothy once said after returning from Oz, "If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard." Well, maybe I will, but it sure is a good feeling to know that the spiny orb weaver is a few feet away.

Mangroves and Birds

One of my favorite places to photograph wading birds is on Biscayne Bay, in calm waters and during early sunlit hours. That's when the rising sun casts a gentle glow on the browns, golds and greens of the mangroves and the reflections cover the calm shallow waters. In those waters, several species of wading birds can been seen, white ibis, tricolor, nightcrown and little blue heron, and the great white and great blue and yellow footed snowy egret. Sometimes, other types of birds show up. In the winter the gulls (ringed billed included) appear in large quantities, as they were yesterday morning.

I paddled out of the canal at the Matheson marina at 7:30. Low was about that time and the north wind was relatively calm as a paddled past the boat ramp where several powerboats were launching. Soon I could see the shallow grasses adjacent to the deep channel. Silhouetted by the sun, I noticed dozens of little bird bodies scattered about and one or two larger long neck types. I paddled around the flat to get into frontlighting on the birds and watched several hundred gulls resting and leisurely floating in the water. Among them were a handful of ibises and one or two blue herons. I found a good spot but repelled most of the birds that flew to a slightly further point from me and my boat. Some of the ibises flew away to greater distances. The birds were facing the north winds, meaning they were not facing me. Not ideal.


There were a few white ibises that were busily catching food. They made nice subjects as the wind rustled their clean white feathers. Always a favorite bird of mine to photograph, I try to capture a captivating moment, as I have so many photos of ibises in similar poses. But always looking for the one special shot, I stayed with them for awhile. A black bird landed and splashed around a bit. That was something new for me here and the lighting was very nice. I changed my compensation from white bird to black bird and rifled off a few shots before the bird flew off.


A tricolor heron came into the picture and soon, I was harrassing it all along the shoreline. If given a choice among my subjects today, it would be the tricolor heron. It offers a greater variety of movements, often times spreading its wings and shuffling around the water. Not as dynamic as the reddish egret, it does have a pattern of movement that gives you lots of variations in poses, especially at 5 fps. Like the little blue, the tricolor appeared to get use to me and got quite close. It was very challenging keeping the skinny necked bird in focus as it moved through various colors of well lit mangrove roots and darker shadows of mangrove leaves.

Eventually, the sun and water were getting too high. Content with my morning photos, I paddled into the creek where my fishermen friends had been searching for snapper. They spotted a woodstork back in there (not exactly the snapper they were looking for). I once saw 4 woodstorks on the bay, a couple years ago in December. I paddled to where they saw the bird today and although I did not find the wood stork, I did watch a racoon hustling from one mangrove root piling to another. I also spotted several yellowcrown nightherons, both adults and juvys hiding out in the roots.

So today, the main focus was on the birds surrounded by impressionist mangrove reflections. Another perfect Biscayne day.

Chokoloskee and learning: part I

So much to learn, so little time. So many errors, so many uncorrected. No one is perfect, but dang, it seems that every photo I consider at the top among a batch has some defect, missing element or something not right! Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for sympathy, accolades or any form of reaction from anyone. But can the reader relate to this? If you identify your photography pasttime as anything more than a whimsy, I think you can.

While coming to terms with the fact that shooting from a canoe has several limitations and special challenges, it occurs to me that taking a hobby and seeing it evolve into a passion is wrought with cyclical highs and lows. It is during those low periods that one is closest to dropping out. I don't know why but for whatever reason, I recognize these low periods that are characterized by extreme amounts of self doubt and criticism as opportunities to achieve a higher level of sophistication. These periods are chaotic. But with the proper amount of resolve, chaos becomes order. And from order comes better photos, or at least that is what I hope for. Bring it on.

From a low period, I realized I needed to make a change to my boat. My approach toward wildlife is quiet, but sometimes that is interrupted by unintended noise coming from my boat. Because of how and where I am photographing, approaching wildlife is very difficult. My Kevlar Wenonah has aluminum gunwales and while they are practical, they are noisy. I have two serious noise issues when attempting to approach wildlife. One is from the paddle which I can set down across the aluminum gunwales/thwarts or place it on the floor with the paddle end at the bow of the boat. The other noise is from the metal carabiner that attaches the stake out pole or the anchor to the boat. When the line is pulled from the water, the carabiner is pulled out over the gunwales, which makes noise.

Finally, I came to the realization that I cannot be as astutely aware of these potential noisemakers to avoid them as I would like to be. I needed to foolproof my boat so that I would not have to think about it. I went to Home Depot and got some pipe insulation, cut them to size and attached them to the gunwales between me and the bow. I placed one on the front thwart and the bow deck thwart and got 4 T-shaped insulators for where the thwart in front of me and behind me attach to the gunwales (see photo above). Those four points are where the carabiners contact the gunwales. With the gunwales covered, I can lay the paddle across them without concern for noise. I also placed a foam pad right at the bow where the paddle is set on the floor. Finally, I have a noise-proof boat! I tested it this weekend on Chokoloskee, a notoriously difficult place to photograph birds.

There is one other learning experience I have had. To shoot acceptably sharp photos of birds, especially those in motion, I needed some light power. To get it, I have turned to two different strategies. The first is the external flash. I know a wildlife photographer who never shoots without a flash, regardless of time of day. I'm not quite at that point when it comes to flash photography, but I am seeing more uses for it. The second strategy has to do with overcoming my fear of high ISO settings. Sony is not known for low noise at high ISO, so I avoid it as much as possible, typically not going higher than 400 (on the a700 400 is fine, but with the a100, it is not). I know of another photographer (sony user) who never goes higher than 200. OK, well, let's see how far I can push the limits of this Sony camera. To my surprise, I can jump it up to 800 and not have unreasonable amount of noise. In fact, I rarely shoot under 400 now a days and often sit at 640. With the higher ISO settings, early morning shooting is much more productive and I can use faster shutter speeds without compromising light. With the flash, high sunlight or cloud cover no longer mean putting away the camera.

I had two mornings in a row on Chokoloskee Bay. Low tide was at about 7 am but with the new moon, the incoming would not take long after that to completely cover the bay. I have found that while paddling on the rivers in the backcountry and out toward the gulf, there is always a slack tide between shifts. Not on Choko Bay. Instead, water is either rushing out or rushing in, no in between. It would not take long for the tide to come up this morning, which is why I wanted on the water before sunrise.

From a canoe, I can't expect much in the way of photos at such an early phase of the sunrise. It's dark, I cannot use a tripod, and flash might work sporadically with close birds, but unlikely since the birds don't let you get that close. The sky was significantly covered in thick dark storm clouds, mostly to the west and north. It was clear where the sun would be rising, which met good lighting with interesting background, especially if white birds were involved.

And they were. I let the lens defog as I made the southerly paddle toward the bird area. The two mangrove islands butting up against the channel looked as if they were covered in snow from a distance. Of course they were white birds, primarily ibises. By the hundreds, these birds roost in concentration throught the night and promptly on cue, begin to fly off as the sun begins to rise. By 7:30 am, the trees are completely empty of birds. Today, I was sitting pretty much under their flight paths. Eventually there was enough light to try the flight shots. I sat and watched and listened. I love to hear their beating wings as they fly over so close that you could spit up and hit one. They do it with such single minded instinct that their dark brown (juvy's) or brilliant blue (adults) eyes stare straight ahead to some distant point that will serve as a landing spot for their continual quest to stop hunger.

Many of them landed among the nearby oyster bars. There are concentrated areas where many birds are snowy egrets, another area where many birds are tricolor herons and still other areas that are mostly roseate spoonbill territory. Among all of these clans are the ibises, so well numbered they are. From what I could see from the flight of birds, there must be at least a few hundred birds in those two small islands. More power to them, those Chokoloskee chickens. By the way, in great number, they do sound a lot like chickens clucking.

Anyway, I wanted to try out my new and improved stealth technique. On only one occasion each morning did I have a chance to try it. On both occasions, it was more the sight of me than the sound that kept these birds on their toes, so to speak. They lost patience with me after about 15 min or so. They would not let me approach closer than 50-60 ft before flying away. I suppose the quiet gunwales did work and bought me a little more time with these birds, but I think that the true test will be on Biscayne Bay. Biscayne birds seems less inclined to fly away to a far distance. There are too many hidden places in near Choko for these birds to go, Biscayne doesn't have that as much with 'civilization' right up against it.

Here are a couple of lucky shots of ibises in flight. Both were among several others, but I rarely have luck shooting several birds in one frame, at least to where it is worth posting. The gray background and the sweet morning light on the birds make these shots special. They are both relatively sharp. The one of the juvy will not go beyond this post because the bird is flying away from me, although I love those juvy feathers and am glad I got a shot showing most of them. The other shot is quite good, although cropped more significantly than I like, so the noise level is a bit high. Using ISO at 800 allowed me to shoot both of these at 1/800, the lowest shutter speed I can go when shooting birds in flight.

For the next post, I talk about my fun time with the sandwich terns, one of my favorite Choko subjects.

Ibises rule Biscayne Bay

Still dark, I drove to Matheson this early morning with no AC and the windows partially opened. This was an experiment to test whether or not it was worth the slight discomfort to get my lens defogged before entering the water. These days, the hot humidity steams up the lens once it is taken out of the pelican case and keeps it that way for a very long time. Meanwhile, birds fly by and photo opps are missed. My little experiment worked and when I arrived at the launch site at 6:15 am, the camera and lens were ready to go. I attached the flash and better beamer before getting out of the car

The sun had not quite peaked over the horizon that was layered in some low lying clouds. There was a slight breeze out of the east. The tide that was at its lowest 1/2 hour earlier had already begun to advance on the near full moon that would push it along. The grasses of the bay were exposed widely along the shoreline. So far, no flying birds, but I expected to see a large number of ibises appear at some point.

In the meantime, the feeding grounds behind me were starting to lively up. I noticed some little blues, a snowy egret, great blue heron and yellowcrown nightherons. And as a bonus, I had a couple raccoons in there. Cute little buggers, they were taking advantage of the low tide and filling up with breakfast, something more healthy than trashed leftovers.

Soon, the ibises started flying in. I faced a shallow tide area where by now, the sun was lighting up the surroundings quite nicely and the birds were increasing in number. The ibises by far outnumbered all others and there might have been over a hundred of them within a 1/4 mile distance of the shoreline. This was going to be a classic bay experience, and the sky so far was cooperating with light cloud cover.

I pushed the canoe along the grasses as close as possible to the birds. There were several laughing gulls in the mix. But the ibises did not like that. Seems that even among birds, gulls are considered low class and were promptly booted out of the wading birds' territory.

The water continued to move in, which is a nice set up for me. It means that I can continue to move closer toward the birds and if I am lucky, they will get use to it.

It was a good day, although I would have preferred a later low tide as I only had about an hour of wading birds. Tomorrow should be better. I only have a few weeks before my semester begins, so this week is all about the bay for me. Perfect tides and so far, perfect wind conditions.

Off the water before 10 am, I decided to head over to Fairchild for awhile. I was treated to some fun photos of blue land crabs. There were several of them crossing the grasses and hiding in the stone walls. Here's one of the shots.

Back to the Biscayne Rookery

For the third year in a row, I have photographed a bird rookery on Biscayne Bay. During the previous two summers, I stayed close to one island watching the dozens of nesting cormorant and cattle egret families. I wrote a journal about it last summer that covers several visits from May to August. The journal is on my website at http://cmierphotoandfitness.net/birdrookery.

My first visit this year was early May when we attempted to launch from the People's Dock near Deering Estate. I planned to get to the rookery at the earliest light but as it turned out, the launch was problematic and by the time I arrived at the rookery, the morning sun was in full force. I arrived at the island that I studied intensively last year to find a disappointing number of birds. They seemed to only be located on the southwest end of the island, where they flourished in the shade. There were many flying to and fro, but scant activity from my perspective with the sun behind me. Hmmm. Where were the birds? Was I too early in the season? Last year, I did not arrive until mid-May, so maybe I was a couple weeks too early.

I knew that there were some islands on the other side of the jetty near the channel closer to the private docks along the bay shoreline. I never attempted to photograph those islands because of the deeper water and boat traffic. The island that I do photograph sits in shallower waters and is well isolated from the channel. With the little activity I saw on the island today, I decided to head over to the channel islands to see if they held more bird action. There are actually three small islands side by side. They are within a few hundred feet of a wall of mangroves that separates the water from the condominiums. I paddled over there, about 1/4 mile away to find each island feverishly active with nesting birds. As usual cormorants and cattle egrets ruled the island in their high numbers. I also spotted several tricolor herons, a few little blues and a couple anhingas amongst the crowd.

The nests were in full force. Nest building, feedings, testing young wings, etc were all happening. Clearly, these islands were going to get more of my attention this summer. I dropped my anchor and was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually caught bottom. I was able to stabilize my boat and luckily, there was no boat traffic on this side of the channel. This was good since the best lighting is on the side of the channel where I would most likely encounter boat wakes.

Since this first day, I've been back to the rookery a few times. the original island has demonstrated more activity and I've spent some quality time watching it. But the three islands near the channel have proven to be a gold mine of bird nesting activity. One day, I arrived with a total cloud cast. A nasty storm was forming in the east but it stayed far enough away that the winds did not pick up significantly and I didn't have to paddle for cover. A perfect day on the water as it turned out! It was a good day for flash and to learn how to use it on white birds. I spent the entire morning facing east despite the rising sun. With the diffuse lighting, I was able to move to any location around the islands and photograph the activity. There was a great amount of flying activity and I practiced shooting while using the flash. I captured some cormorants feeding in the nests and also in the water, which is an interesting sight to see.

The cattle egrets do a very good job of hiding their nests and thus far, I have had little luck capturing a parent feeding the young birds in the nest. One day, I came up on the island just in time to see a tricolor heron feeding its baby. As soon as I saw it, it was finished and flew off leaving the baby tricolor behind. The baby stood on a high branch in good light for the longest time seemingly waiting for mom to come back. I waited patiently for the parent to arrive again for another round of feeding, but I never saw it and missed that opportunity. In the meantime, birds were flying about and young cormorants were learning to swim. Several fledglings were learning to use their wings, never venturing too far from the nest.

I'll visit the rookery a few more times before the summer is over. This year has been more of a challenge to get on the water because of the storms and rain. But it's been a privilege as always to visit the rookery and observe the life of the birds.

Concerning photography, I've used my new telephoto zoom lens here at the rookery once so far. Compared to the prime lens (420mm with teleconverter attached), the 70-400mm lens has opened up more opportunities. I can capture entire wing spans on birds in the mangroves and flying over head. This advantage becomes most evident in flight shots where I often focus on an incoming bird getting closer by the millisecond. With the prime lens, I have a short window of opportunity before the bird gets too close and I miss the entire wing span. Obviously, I will need some practice with the zoom, but that's part of the fun of it.

I've been struggling with a chronic case of tendinitis in my left shoulder and arm. It appears to be brought on by holding my camera. To overcome this, I purchased a monopod and use it often in the boat and on land. It may or may not provide me more stability but it does take the pressure off my left shoulder. Using the monopod, however is limiting especially with flight shots. It does have a swivel head which helps, but it is still awkward when trying to move the camera about. It's especially difficult when I have the flash attached. In that case, I don't even bother with the monopod and simply try to use my knees as support for my arm.

Using the flash has been challenging and I'm still working out the bugs so to speak. Shooting white birds in daylight with the flash seems counter-intuitive but when shadows start taking over (i.e, under the wings), the fill flash is very pleasing if used properly. I typically stop down the flash to about -2 and adjust exposure compensation accordingly. It's a learning process and all I can do at this point is continue reading what the experts are saying and looking at their results.

Summers on Biscayne Bay - Matheson Hammock

Matheson Hammock area of the bay is my favorite for capturing wading birds. They usually congregate near the mouth of the creek located a 1/2 mile south of the canoe launch. There are several lone mangroves off the main shoreline on both the north and south sides of the creek entrance and among these you can find birds roosting or feeding in and around the trees.

At the earliest of light, this is one of the best places for photographing in the direction of the mangroves. the golden light is spectacular and the reflections offer some beautiful contrasts to the wading birds. At low tide, it is not unusual to find several ibises and little blue herons feeding vigorously in the flats. This is the only area of Biscayne Bay where I've seen so many little blue herons in one place. Great white egrets and a lone great blue heron can be spotted here also. Tricolor herons are present, although they tend to stay closer to the shoreline. In winter months, I've spotted wood storks herel. And those winter southeasterly winds tend to blow the portuguese man-a-wars into the shallow areas. I've captured some interesting photos of those creatures.

This summer, I found a couple black-necked stilts in the shallows. Not only was it the first time I've seen them here, it was the first time I've photographed these birds.

Another aspect of Matheson that I like is the creek that runs from the bay back into the canal. Here, I have photographed large mangrove crabs that seem to be more obvious in late summer months. Once, I captured several of them and two that seemed to be mating. These shy crabs are very difficult to photograph, with so much opportunity for hiding among the mangrove mud and roots. A flash is useful and this year, I will have a 180mm macro to take in there making the photographing easier. With my 420mm lens/teleconverter, I have a hard time getting to the right distance away from the crabs. It's easier to get close ups, thus a macro lens will serve that purpose well.

Another creature I find in the creeks is the large female golden silk spider that spins her web above the creek. This is a beautiful spider that photographs well with a clear sky background if you can situate your boat for such a scene. It's worth the maneuvering to get a shot of this large spider, but it takes lots of patience.

As for the birds, this is a great place for photographing, but only at low tides. I find the best time to come here is when low tide is between 7-9 am. The park opens very early and it will cost $5-6 to get in.