Results 1 to 7 of 7

Thread: Finally visiting Florida this April! Best spots and field guides?

  1. #1
    BPN Viewer
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Munich, Germany
    Posts
    75
    Threads
    12
    Thank You Posts

    Default Finally visiting Florida this April! Best spots and field guides?

    Dear friends,

    I am happy to say that I am finally making my (bird photographer's) dream come true and for the first time since more than 10 years my travels will be bringing my wife and me back to Florida! We will be flying in and out of Jacksonville for the second half of April, and certainly be attending the St Augustine Bird and Photo Fest :) The plan is to drive for 2 weeks counter-clockwise - first to the gulf coast, maybe down to Sanibel Island, for the weekend to Miami ;) and then back up, visting Cape Kennedy and up to St Augustine.

    Apart from that, I will work myself through the threads below to find out more about the best spots, as my understanding is that the "old" tips (Ding Darling) are no longer really the best. Does Artie have up-to-date field guides? And anybody tips for renting a boat trip (I would be willing to share costs, if one of you is there as well!). I remember something about flight photography from a pontoon boat but somehow have lost the link.

    Greetings from Munich!
    Christof

  2. #2
    Lifetime Member Marina Scarr's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Sarasota, FL
    Posts
    10,347
    Threads
    403
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Hi Christof:

    I have read your email but plan on being out of town for a few days. I will get back with you a little later in the week with some suggestions. I look forward to meeting you at the birding fest!
    Marina Scarr
    Florida Master Naturalist
    Website, Facebook

  3. #3
    BPN Viewer
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    47
    Threads
    11
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Some places I have found to be good, and indeed worth your time:

    West Coast

    Fort Desoto Park near Tampa is Epic! The North Lagoon at the end of the road in the North West Corner is the best spot. Go there. Also, Ding Darling is acceptable, but not great unless you are there for low tide. Bunche Beach can have a lot of birds, yet not always. Sunrise or sunset is best. Skip Corkscrew, unless you really like warblers.

    South:

    You must drive through Loop Road, off Tamiami trail. There are a lot of gators there, and many many birds. I saw a Great White Heron when I was there last week! Also many Night Herons, and even a Florida Black Bear! Shark Valley in a Morning only place, try the canal to the right of the buildings once inside.

    Everglades National Park Main Entrance: Try Flamingo's Eco Pond, but be there before sunrise. When I was there about two weeks ago, there were over 100 snowy egrets landing about half an hour before sunrise. The best action usually happens before the sun rises, though plenty will happen in the hour following.They fly away and roost, but will intermitantly land and refeed. Mrazek Pond will be great, maybe. Paurotis Pond will have nesting Wood Storks, How long is your glass? You can still at times catch flyovers. Anhinga trail is good, but more in the afternoon, I find. Here is a great website link for information: http://photo.net/learn/nature/everglades It is old, yet I can attest still true. Totally do a sunset at Pine Glades Lake; you will remember it forever! (unless you get clouded out, unlikely this time of year).

    East:

    Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Palm Beach County has nesting Wood Storks, Great White Egrets, and Great Blue Herons. The heron chicks are beginning to fledge. Green Cay is good too, Loxahatchee I would likely skip. Elsewheres north on the East Coast I may say no more, having not been much else where, except Riverben Park, which is pretty good too.

    For general advice, I would say spend your time seeking what you can find only here. The Spoonbills are lifechangingly dramatic, if you can find them! Seek at Eco Pond before Sunrise, or hike the Christian Point Trail, if it is wet, or, look in the pools behind Eco Pond )the trail by the sign; you will know it when you find it).

    Also, to see what's been where, check out ebird.org, select the explore data tab. See swfloridabirder.blogspot.com for detailed information about MANY sites. See the tropical audubon society's bird board for recent sightings. http://www.tropicalaudubon.org/tasboard/tasbb.html For Locations, http://www.tropicalaudubon.org/locations.html.

    Hope this helps!
    Last edited by ChrisCallahan; 03-11-2014 at 09:02 PM. Reason: My Keyboard went wierd.

  4. Thanks Christof Ruch, fabiobernardino thanked for this post
  5. #4
    rajojomanik
    Guest

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisCallahan View Post
    Some places I have found to be good, and indeed worth your time:

    West Coast

    Fort Desoto Park near Tampa is Epic! The North Lagoon at the end of the road in the North West Corner is the best spot. Go there. Also, Ding Darling is acceptable, but not great unless you are there for low tide. Bunche Beach can have a lot of birds, yet not always. Sunrise or sunset is best. Skip Corkscrew, unless you really like warblers.

    South:

    You must drive through Loop Road, off Tamiami trail. There are a lot of gators there, and many many birds. I saw a Great White Heron when I was there last week! Also many Night Herons, and even a Florida Black Bear! Shark Valley in a Morning only place, try the canal to the right of the buildings once inside.

    Everglades National Park Main Entrance: Try Flamingo's Eco Pond, but be there before sunrise. When I was there about two weeks ago, there were over 100 snowy egrets landing about half an hour before sunrise. The best action usually happens before the sun rises, though plenty will happen in the hour following.They fly away and roost, but will intermitantly land and refeed. Mrazek Pond will be great, maybe. Paurotis Pond will have nesting Wood Storks, How long is your glass? You can still at times catch flyovers. Anhinga trail is good, but more in the afternoon, I find. Here is a great website link for information: http://photo.net/learn/nature/everglades It is old, yet I can attest still true. Totally do a sunset at Pine Glades Lake; you will remember it forever! (unless you get clouded out, unlikely this time of year).

    East:

    Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Palm Beach County has nesting Wood Storks, Great White Egrets, and Great Blue Herons. The heron chicks are beginning to fledge. Green Cay is good too, Loxahatchee I would likely skip. Elsewheres north on the East Coast I may say no more, having not been much else where, except Riverben Park, which is pretty good too.

    For general advice, I would say spend your time seeking what you can find only here. The Spoonbills are lifechangingly dramatic, if you can find them! Seek at Eco Pond before Sunrise, or hike the Christian Point Trail, if it is wet, or, look in the pools behind Eco Pond )the trail by the sign; you will know it when you find it).

    Also, to see what's been where, check out ebird.org, select the explore data tab. See swfloridabirder.blogspot.com for detailed information about MANY sites. See the tropical audubon society's bird board for recent sightings. http://www.tropicalaudubon.org/tasboard/tasbb.html For Locations, http://www.tropicalaudubon.org/locations.html.

    Hope this helps!
    I too will be spending some time in the west coast, Fort Myers, as well as, Fort DeSoto. I was planning a one day at Little Estero Lagoon and another at Ft DeSoto. The rest of the time will be spent around Orlando area, a visit to Merritt Island, Viera and Joe Overstreet. i had great luck last year at Merritt with Skimmers, Spoonbills, white Pelicans, Reddish Egret, etc.

    I was wondering if anyone has an update on Little Estero Lagoon.

    Thank you.

  6. #5
    Lifetime Member Marina Scarr's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Sarasota, FL
    Posts
    10,347
    Threads
    403
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    You are coming at a great time to visit Fort Desoto Park in Tierra Verde, Florida. The best places to photograph there are East Beach, the Gulf Pier and North Beach concession and north lagoon areas. The north lagoon is probably the best place. When you get to the T after paying your park entry, make a right and drive to the very end of the road and park at the farthest point. Cross over the foot bridge and make a right. You may either walk out to the beach and up or directly to the right and over to the lagoon. You may wish to join the Facebook page called Friends of Fort De Soto Park where you will see what is going on there on a daily basis in terms of photography. The Gulf Pier is usually quite good for beach birds but especially for terns in flight. I would plan no less than 2 days at Fort Desoto. This spot is good mornings or evenings and it's best when the tide is lower rather than higher.

    You are going to be here at a good time to visit the Burrowing Owls in Cape Coral. Most should have owlets at the nest. Google Cape Coral library and you will find the nests all around the library, but also drive down the streets in the neighborhood, and you will see them everywhere. The nests are very easy to spot and, for the most part, the owls are used to people. Try to approach quietly and down low. If the young scurry back into the nests, they'll be back up in no time.

    I do not have any updated reports on Little Estero Lagoon. It was slow the last few months but it will surely be picking up speed here very quickly. Ding Darling is still a hit or miss, and usually a miss but you never know what you may capture, so it's probably worth a drive through if you are in the area.

    I have very little knowledge about photography on Sanibel so will have to defer to someone else for that.

    I will be attending the Foto Fest and look forward to meeting you, so please say hello! Please ask if you have additional questions.
    Marina Scarr
    Florida Master Naturalist
    Website, Facebook

  7. Thanks Christof Ruch thanked for this post
  8. #6
    BPN Viewer
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Munich, Germany
    Posts
    75
    Threads
    12
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Thanks everybody again for the tips! I tried to adhere to all of them, but some things worked differently than expected!

    Let me summarize on what we did and how it worked out, maybe the info is useful to others planning a trip:


    • We stayed in Crystal River and went to the Manatee Spring with a boat. We saw one Manatee, which was great, but overall I wouldn't do it again at that time of year. Obviously winter is the time to do this.
    • Staying in Pass-a-Grill, which was extremely nice, I spent two mornings at Fort De Sotos North Lagoon as Marina advised :)

      This was more than amazing, I hadn't expected the birds to be *that* tame. Walked right into the friendly Reddish Egret - and I didn't even know the species (Lifer)! Took some nice pics and saw my first Tricolored Heron as well, moved on to the lagoon and got some great action from mating Royal Terns (another Lifer for me), Skimmers (Lifer), and some shorebirds I haven't identified correcly yet.

      I met other photographers there (greetings!), but on the first day we were just three photogs, on the second day it was actually a couple of people with long lenses, but still plenty of space for everybody, and the birds didn't seem the least disturbed.
    • I got the tip there to checkout the Mulberry Trees, as the berries were ripe and the migration in full swing - this wasn't too good for photos (you'd rather be quick...), but was the best birding. Actually, there was literally a bus load of birders in the bushes, and it was great fun. Saw Painted Bunting, Indigo Bunting, Tenesse, Cape May, Black-and-White, plus Summer Tanager, Scarlet Tanager, and Orchard Oriole, Baltimore Oriole, Rose-breasted and Blue Grosbeak and some more... wow!
    • We drove by the Venice Rookery for a quick stop, and it was ok with a few nests and chicks of Great Blue, Great Egret, and Anhinga. Wrong time of day, but certainly the access is easy!
    • Further south we skipped Ding Darling, Little Estero Lagoon, and missed the Cape Coral Burrowing Owls due to a misfunctioning Satnav :-(
    • We did spent a morning in Corkscrew Swamp, which we totally loved! At the Lettuce Lakes, many opportunities for Anhinga, Great Blue Heron, Little Blue, Great White, Night Heron as well as Alligators. The boardwalk makes the perspective a bit tricky and the light was very harsh, but an absolutely lovely place!
    • Due to our trip to Miami, we did Everglades from Tiamiami only very quickly and at midday... We did the Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk, which was a disappoinment, checked out the paved part of Loop Road, which had some really cool viewing windows into wonderful swap landscape and provided us with our first Green Heron, as well as the Shark Valley canal. Admittedly, bad lighting and thus no keepers (yes Chris, you were right! Thanks again for your help!). We did not have time to go to Everglades main entrance.
    • Going back north from Miami, we did squeeze in the Vista View Owls to make up for the dip in Cape Coral, and that was really nice! Very accessible and quiet, relatively cooperative birds.
    • As we wanted to spend a day in the Kennedy Space Center and not miss the Merrit Island NWR, we did have to skip Blue Cypress Lake as well as the Wakodahatchee Welands and Green Kay Wetlands.
    • We did the Black Point Wildlife Drive, which provided us with a feeding frenzy of > 40 White Pelican, dozens of Spoonies, and a hundred or so Snowy and Great Egrets at scope viewing distance (no photos...), and nothing to photograph. In the vistor center they recommended the Peacock Pocket Rd Drive, which was a great tip. The road was bad however for our small rental, and it took a long time. Only at the very end, some good opportunities for the Spoonbills! Mission accomplished!
    • In St. Augustine at the Photo Fest (Marina - we missed each other! Too bad, maybe next time!), I went to the Anastasia State Park Beach with Kevin Karlsson - fog ruined some shots and only Royal Terns and Willets - and twice to the Alligator Farm (with Vinny Colucci and Maxis Gamez), which was a smart idea. The Alligator Farm was epic the first time, and only so so the second... had I only had the second experience, I wouldn't even have known what I missed! We got rained out at Washington Oaks, but that was planned as a pure birding trip anyway. The sunrise boat tour with Eco Tours was very good, saw Bald Eagle and got some nice photos of Least Terns and some shorebirds.


    Overall, I got more keepers than in 3 years travelling Europe... admittedly, the Florida Birds are rather tame *and* mostly big, which makes photographing them, well, predictable - still, getting really good shots requires skill.

    I will post some photos in the appropriate groups, looking forward to comments!
    Christof

  9. Thanks fabiobernardino thanked for this post
  10. #7
    Lifetime Member Marina Scarr's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Sarasota, FL
    Posts
    10,347
    Threads
    403
    Thank You Posts

    Default

    Glad you had such a terrific trip!
    Marina Scarr
    Florida Master Naturalist
    Website, Facebook

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Web Analytics