There are several pairs of Snail Kites nesting in and around the Marsh Trail at Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. I’ve decided that this will be my summer project, to document the nest and eventually the fledgling kites, so you will probably see the gallery dominated by this one species. Of course if you’ve been a regular visitor here, you already know that the Snail Kite is one of my favorite species to photograph.

If you are interested in photographing the nesting kites at Loxahatchee, please keep the following in mind.

1. Many of the nests are too far away to see; only one nest is really visible from the Marsh Trail.


2. I recommend a minimum of a 400mm lens to be able to really get these birds large enough in the frame, and most of the time you will need a 500mm lens or more.


3. The visible nest is a morning shoot. The sun is just not in the correct position to be able to yield any good shots in the afternoon.


4. After about 7:30 in the morning the sun is blistering hot, and the gnats will swarm upon you. Wear insect repellant, sunscreen, and bring some water. You can easily become dehydrated out there. Also watch out for ants.


5. Finally, remember to be courteous to the other photographers and birders out there. Do not do anything that will disturb the kites. The Snail Kite is an endangered species in the Florida Everglades and it is illegal to disturb them.

Labels: Apple Snail, Loxahatchee, Snail Kite

I apologize for the lack of updates to the blog portion of this site recently. I’ve gotten caught up in a number of projects that have been taking up most of my time. I have and will continue to update the galleries with new images as I am able to take and process, but I won’t be updating this blog as often until late summer or early fall of 2008. I will be spending that time doing several things:

First is that we are in the middle of spring cleaning at my house. We just replaced the carpeting on the bottom floor with new wood laminate. Next we’ll have to replace the various window blinds that are no longer functional. Then we’ll be cleaning out the garage just as hurricane season approaches. So lots of home improvement stuff will be going on over the summer.

I’m also going to be pushing hard to launch and get the Everglades Photographic Society (EPS) moving in the right direction. We have a great mission and a wonderful family of photographers; now we just have to get some content up. Please join us on our public flickr group. Post some images, start a discussion, and let us know what type of nature photography tips, tricks, and tutorials you’d like to see. We’d really like to hear from you and hope to make EPS the place where you can learn how to really improve your nature photography skills and learn about the natural environment as well.

Finally I’m going to spend a good 30 percent of my photography time these coming months on portraits and beauty shots of people. Fashion and modeling photography have always fascinated me and over the past year I’ve taken some baby steps into learning how to properly capture those types of images. Thanks to strobist.com, I’ve really learned a lot about off camera lighting and it’s led me to want to pursue other types of photography. Well it’s time that I start putting what I’ve learned into practice; after all it’s the only way we get better at photography.

So don’t fret too much about the lack of updates here for a little while. There will still be plenty of places you can find me. Be sure to check out the gallery from time to time as I will continue to post images there. You can also always e-mail me your questions, which I am all too happy to answer. Find me on flickr and on the EPS flickr group, in fact, please join the EPS group on flickr. So I’m not going anywhere, just spreading the love a bit more.

I’d like to leave you with his little bit of encouraging news I received from fellow photographer Charles Slavens. This e-mail was originally sent by Elinor Williams of the Friends of Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge regarding the recent photo contest held there. This excerpt from the e-mail is the part I found encouraging:

" I think they might have fixed some of the complaints from last year that you forwarded to me from Jay Paredes and that I forwarded to them - they eliminated the Close-Up category, and all photos that were moved from one category to another still made the final judging. Without the confusion of a Close-Up category, the only photos that were moved ended up in Special Techniques, which was judged after the others. The judges acknowledged the difficulty of capturing tiny birds sitting still long enough for a photograph, although they still didn't seem to cut them any slack. There was an attempt to explain the rules a bit better on the application this time. Only one photo was disqualified, and it was a gorgeous one, too, for being on the wrong kind of board and being too long. "

So it looks like all that moaning and groaning I did last year made some difference. Let’s hope that they continue to improve the process to make it easy and fair for all involved and perhaps they’ll get better participation. I for one am curious to see this year’s winners…

Labels: Loxahatchee, Miscellaneous

I took a little break from nature photography in October to pursue portrait photography with some success. It’s probably something I’ll do from time to time, while I continue to build a portfolio. However the real news is it is November, which is usually the time when bird photography starts to get exciting again. Right now, the happening spot continues to be Green Cay, as Purple Gallinules, still in their juvenile plumage, climb the stalks of the Fire Flag to reach the remaining flower stalks. You’d better hurry however; as the cooler weather will soon wither away the Fire Flag and the gallinules will become less accessible until the spring.

I also had a chance to check out the Loxahatchee Marsh Trail this past weekend, and I saw a couple of Northern Harriers working the area. Also present were two Red-shouldered Hawks and a Snail Kite. There were just a trickle of Blue-winged Teals and a few very shy Wood Ducks. Photo opportunities were low as many of these new arrivals were still very shy.

With the holidays approaching, I plan to be out in the field a lot more and hopefully get some great shots this winter. My new Canon 40D has become my primary workhorse and I really like its faster autofocus speed, faster frames rate, and deeper buffer. What I’m not so crazy about is that the larger LCD does not seem to make it any easier to determine if the shot is in focus, motion blurred, or not. I guess Canon would need to increase the actual pixel resolution for that to happen. Overall it’s a great camera and I’ve taken some excellent shots of birds in flight, macro, and portraits with it.

What I’ve learned when doing portraits is how to use flash more effectively. In particular how to use flash off camera. I have yet to try my newfound fondness for flash photography for nature photography; but I hope to find some sort of application for off camera flash in nature photography soon. One such application that I’ve seen used is to freeze the motion of hummingbirds, but that would be difficult here in South Florida, where we don’t get many hummingbirds. If I do find an application, I’ll be sure to write about it here.

Finally, I’ll put in a plug for the STA-1E birding tours being conducted by South Florida Water Management and Pine Jog Environmental Education Center. Remaining dates for the 2007/2008 season are:

November 10 and 24, 2007
December 8 and 22, 2007
January 5 and 19, 2008
February 2 and 16, 2008
March 1 and 15, 2008
April 12 and 26, 2008

Times for the tours are 8:00 AM to 12:00 Noon. To attend and for more information, please contact Helen Beers at (561) 686-6600.

Labels: 40D, Green Cay, Loxahatchee, STA-1E

August! So many things happen in August for me. My daughter’s birthday is in August. My wedding anniversary is in August. School starts in August. Of course Canon makes new camera announcements in August. So, will there be a new Canon 40D that will be announced in August? Only time will tell, but there is enormous speculation on the forums, especially dpreview.com. I’m hoping that a 40D will be announced because I really need a new camera. I’ve outgrown the 20D, and I can’t afford any of the professional bodies in the 1D series. My 20D is back at Canon service again, because it was recently infested with ants. That’s right, ants. I use the camera at least every weekend if not more often, so it wasn’t sitting in some dark corner of the house. Anyway, theories for the infestation range from having taken too many macro shots of insects to taking way too many “sweet shots”. In reality, very small ants like sugar ants and moisture ants are attracted to electronics. They will colonize computers and other electronic devices, especially in very hot and humid places. I’ve read some accounts on line about ants being a problem in the tropics. I’m not sure exactly how the ants got into the camera itself, but when I took out my camera from my camera bag to get shots of a Snail Kite; literally thousands of ants started crawling out of it. Most of them were hiding out in the pop-up flash, but they were all over the place. The battery grip and the LCD all had ants crawling around them. I shook and blew off as many of them as possible. The camera still worked and took some great images that day, but there were dead ants still stuck inside the camera. To prevent any damage from the decomposition of the dead ants or their eggs, it’s off to Canon for a cleaning.

Around the end of July and the beginning of August the farms around Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge begin planting for the fall. This is a great time to visit them as the wading birds and the Snail Kites are attracted to the area as the soil is prepared for planting. This past weekend we were able to observe Wood Storks, Egrets, Herons, Spoonbills, and Snail Kites at very close proximities just outside the gates of Loxahatchee. Inside the refuge itself there was little bird activity, but there was plenty of insect activity with butterflies and bees going about their business. Enjoy the August gallery.

Labels: 20D, 40D, ants, Birds, Cameras, Loxahatchee, Snail Kite

Partly cloudy, highs near 90° F with scattered thunderstorms. That about sums up the weather in July. When you adjust for humidity it can easily feel like 98° F out there, and that's enough to keep most photographers indoors. It's only in the very early morning or the late evening that the temperatures are bearable for outdoor activities, and that's true for the wild animals as well.



So today, my friend Chuck and I went scouting for some new locations to shoot. One of the places we stopped at was Secret Woods Nature Center, in Broward County. It's a well hidden park that looks promising for macro photography. There are lots of land and fiddler crabs, as well as a variety of insects. I didn't take any pictures as I left my camera in the car, because it was just a scouting trip. I did leave with a rather nasty spider bite that happened when my left arm brushed against the boardwalk railing and I felt this painful burning feeling on my arm. I'm not sure what kind of spider it was as I never saw it, and I'm actually just guessing that it is a spider bite from researching the symptoms on the Internet. I like taking pictures of insects and spiders, but I hate being bitten by them.

The July gallery is now open. Like the June gallery, it's going to be a mixture of the standard birds as well as some insect macro photography.

On our way back home we stopped by the southern entrance to Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. From there you could clearly see the afternoon thunderstorms gathering over the Everglades.

Some of you have been asking about out little girl Arwen. Since I took down the old web site AmyandJay.net, I guess there have been no updates about her to the general public. Well, I didn't know so many readers of Beauty of the Wild were so interested in our little girl's progress. To find out all about Arwen's monthly adventures you'll need to subscribe to Multiply.com. That's where we've moved all of our family related information. There are three main multiply sites where you can find us. They are: Jay Paredes, Amy Paredes, and Jake Paredes.

Labels: HDR, Loxahatchee, Spider