Florida offers so many opportunities to explore. We’ll chronicle our encounters with nature and interesting places and share our stories about the fun events we attend.
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Summer Update
Summer in Florida is the time of year when photography gets slow. While there are several species of birds that migrate here for the summer months, we start getting anxious for the fall and winter migrations. It’s a good time of the year for butterflies. Unfortunately, it’s also our rainy season and mosquitoes love the
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Bahia Beach Nature Preserve
This past Monday, my friend Art Nadelman and I made a visit to Bahia Beach Nature Preserve in Ruskin. The preserve is less than a mile from Tampa Bay and has become one of favorite winter spots for waterfowl. We often see many other species of water birds like herons, egrets, gulls and shorebirds. Occasionally
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Florida Snail Kites
As promised from my last post, here is the story about our recent trips to the Fort Myers area to look for snail kites. I’ve written about snail kites in the past because they are such fascinating birds with an equally fascinating story. The Everglades snail kite subspecies is unique to central and south Florida.
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Peculiar Spring Season
It’s been over 6 weeks since my last post. We always anticipate the winter and spring seasons to be some of the best times for wildlife photography here in Florida. Many birds migrate here, while many more migrate through our area in April and early May. But this year has been oddly quiet in several
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Reddish Egret at Fort De Soto
For the past 9 days, our daughter and granddaughter have been visiting us from Japan. Of course, anyone who comes here wants to go to the beach so last week we took a trip to Fort De Soto Park in St. Petersburg. They have a huge beach that is good for shelling. While the ladies
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IndyCar Returns to Florida
Most of the major auto racing organizations begin their seasons here in Florida. A few weeks ago, the IMSA sports car series kicked off their year with the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway. NASCAR followed up a couple of weeks later at the same venue with the Daytona 500. This past weekend, IndyCar started
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Little Winter Wonders
One of my favorite birds is the green-winged teal. They are beautiful small ducks that migrate here every winter. While green-winged teal are a common species, they can be difficult to find because they prefer smaller shallow ponds with plenty of cover. Last year we were dealing with the high water left over from hurricane
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Roar Before the 24
Every year the IMSA WeatherTech sportscar racing series kicks off the year with the famed Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway. On the weekend before the race, all the teams participate in several practice sessions. This prelude to the 24-hour endurance race is known as the “Roar Before the 24”. Last Saturday I headed over
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
As the end of 2023 approaches, it’s time to reflect on the past year. Although I didn’t get out as much as in years past, some of the photo opportunities were amazing. In February we located a bird that I had never seen in the wild. In fact, in 2022 we drove over 3 hours
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Tampa Riverwalk
Last night I had the opportunity to participate in the annual KelbyOne Worldwide Photo Walk. It’s an event created by Kelby Photography and features local photo tours and instruction in communities across the globe. My group met in downtown Tampa and featured nighttime photography along the Riverwalk. It was a great chance to meet some
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Bok Tower Gardens
This past week we took a trip over to Lake Wales to visit Bok Tower Gardens. It’s one of our favorite spots to go for hummingbirds. Bok Tower Gardens is a beautiful place built atop one of the tallest areas in all of Florida. It was originally built by Edward and Mary Bok in the
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Hurricane Idalia Flamingos
Every now and then there is a silver lining to a major hurricane. Despite all the damage that occurred with hurricane Idalia last week, there were some positive things that happened that astonished communities all along the Gulf Coast. For the first time in decades, American flamingos were spotted in several places after the storm.