I was there about a month ago and was a bit disappointed. The birds were relatively far away and much less in number than on Anhinga Trail or Shark Valley. The Sanibel Pier was OK for Pelicans, but only 2 Snowy Egrets who were not very active. We met some friends there so the day was fun from a social stand point, but disappointing photographically.
Charlie Ding is always worth checking out but can be dead. The worst part is we used to depend on blind pass as a back up but its under construction. They are restoring the pass !!
bunche beach before you get to sanibel was pretty nice a few weekends ago. lots of skimmers, and three types of terns, one white morph reddish egret and one regular reddish egret. could have been more species, but i was pretty tied up with all the others.
If you are looking for a place to shoot in the Ft. Myers area in the near future, consider Corkscrew Swamp. I was out there on the 19th. Having visited Corkscrew for more than ten years, I have never seen so many birds. I talked with another photographer who had also been there the prior four days, and he said it had been the same each morning. Get there by around 8:00, and go to the lettuce lakes. There were hundreds of very active white ibis (many juveniles), great egrets, snowy egrets, little blue heron, GBH (just a couple), spoonbills (perhaps a dozen), green herons (saw a couple), black-crowned night herons (adult and juvenile), tri-colors, anhingas, and four VERY active 'gators. It's always a challenging place to shoot, but you shouldn't lack for subjects!
I should have mentioned in my report on Corkscrew Swamp that there are a number of wood storks currently feeding in the lettuce lakes, as well as the other varieties I mentioned.
Hi Charlie Our action is slowing !! The best right now I would say is Flaming for the Ospreys The babies are growing fast it won't last long !!
Purple Martins should be increasing in numbers. Robert is Here has been dependable and the Fruit and Spice Park !!
Anhinga has been slow the past week so its up north to Waco and Green Cay !!! btw I did see a STK by the parking lot. I'm not sure they have picked nesting material but I'm hopeful !!!
I was at Ding Darling the 7th, 8th and13th of March. Nothing really going on......but the fishing pier was VG a few of those days. Nice to see corkscrew with some activity.....your image show more activity than I had seen in my last 7 visits there!
I just talked to a captain that I've corresponded with in the past. He knows the location of a nesting Magnificent Frigate bird. He offered to take me for $$$ which I've accepted.
Ding has been more "miss" than "hit" this year. It's one of those places that when it's on, it's very good.....but when it's off....It's really bad. Like Alfred said, Blind Pass was always the fallback, but that has been lousy due to the construction (although there are a lot of birds still there, but the best activity has bee to the left side of the pass instead of the usual spot across the bridge). You can always hit Bunche Beach as well, but I find the causeway islands to be good spots too now that they're done building the bridge. I actually prefer the causeway islands to Blind Pass, as there's usually more variety there.
However, Estero is definitely king in my book. It's been great this year.
Ding Darling
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