The following morning after arriving I grabbed my camera stuff and went for a walk around the neighborhood.
I knew of the scrub jay from my dad owning property in Florida. It’s protected and if your land has a scrub jay nest you aren’t allowed to build and have to wait until it leaves, or I think have it professional and safely relocated. I didn’t see any of these, but I did see a Blue Jay.
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/400 Sec - F10 - ISO 400
And even if the sun is in the other direction, sometimes you still get a cool image of a Mourning Dove.
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/2500 Sec - F7.1 - ISO 400
Next we have a Cardinal that is still going through it’s color changing, hiding behind a branch.
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @500 - 1/1000 Sec - F7.1 - ISO 400
And then there were bunnies. All over the place, I probably saw 4 or 5 at one time. Though very spread out so I couldn’t get more than one in a shot. But I managed to get somewhat close to one without bothering it and get a pretty good detail shot.
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @450 - 1/100 Sec - F7.1 - ISO 400
This next image is a great example of why I never delete any photos. Before the trip I actually purchased a second hard drive, SSD this time. And portable so I could always carry it in my camera bag in case I needed a quick reload of the memory cards.
Flash forward to now and all of my hard drives were getting full. A few months ago before the world came screeching to a halt, I also purchased and set up my own server backup. A NAS for the tech savvy. Now I have multiple backups on different devices, in different locations and a cloud backup.
Back to the picture, I originally wrote this one off as meh in the editing, probably because at the time I was only focused on getting good clean images like the one above. Profile shots with plenty of detail in the right lighting. While those are still my main focus there is something strongly powerful about a nice composed image with a good subject matter.
This next image really seems peaceful to me when I look at it. I like it enough that as I’m writing this I just added it to my main page of wildlife photography.
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/500 Sec - F7.1 - ISO 400
And that was it for that day. It may have been a vacation, but there was plenty to do with the family. I couldn’t spend the entire time out doing photography, I had to do little trips here and there. One day I’d like to take a trip myself where all I do is photography. But at this point who knows what the future holds. A lot more people getting sick from lifting restrictions too early during the Covid-19 pandemic if you ask me.
So another day and another trip out. This time to a beach I had been to many times, our regular beach from all our family vacations growing up.
There were a fair amount of seabirds out flying around.
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @150 - 1/1250 Sec - F8 - ISO 400
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @300 - 1/1600 Sec - F8 - ISO 400
That kept me busy for a few minutes, but they were all heading off down the coast. Probably towards the much more crowded beach that most people went to a mile or two up the way. Which also cost money for parking I might add. Free beach is nice.
I left the beach to head back to the parking lot and more importantly the other end where the bay was. I was hoping more birds would be there getting some early morning fishing on.
What I found was even better, off to the side was an opening in the bushes with a trail and a few signs. I checked that out first and found it was a fantastic dock in the bay. Pretty big too. There was a person out in the water kayaking, and someone fishing at another dock. I had this one to myself. For now.
It wasn’t too long before I heard a noise that made me jump. I wasn’t expecting a large noise to come from somewhere around me. I was mostly focused on the trees I was right near and above me. Trees meant snakes in my head. But what I heard was more of a rush of air. Like someone had quickly released a valve.
I froze and waited, slowly looking around until I heard it again! That time I was prepared and I narrowed it down that it was coming from… The water?
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @400 - 1/400 Sec - F8 - ISO 400
A MANATEE!
Well that’s about the most exciting thing to ever happen. The signs mentioned being careful for manatees when out in the water. But I’ve seen a lot of signs for animals that you don’t wind up seeing. So I didn’t even think twice about it. Honestly I knew from when I was a kid there was one time where we went out on a dock to the bay. Not this dock, a private one for the residents of the neighborhood my dad’s parents house was in. We went out at sunset and fish were leaping out of the water left and right, catching flies. I briefly thought about that memory when I was heading out to find access to the bay.
I did also see a fish jump out of the water that morning, but damn that’s near impossible to predict and be looking in the right spot with a telephoto.
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @250 - 1/640 Sec - F8 - ISO 400
That was it. I was thrilled. There wasn’t cell service for me on this dock so I couldn’t let the siblings know what I had found. One in particular would flip over this, manatees have always been her favorite.
I watched for probably a half hour, every other minute or two one would surface for air. Just for a second and then back down.
But that was enough, I was happy. I packed up the tripod and holstered the camera on my hip and started to head back to the car.
When I was crossing back on the trail is when I heard a big rustle in the bushes right next to me, and I’ll be honest I thought “snake” and bolted. Only about 10 or 15 feet before I turned back to see what it was. Courage might be something I need to work on to be a nature photographer lol.
But a bigger rustle came from the brush and out scurried two iguanas! Naturally it took me a minute to get the camera off my hip, and by that point one had already retreated back into the plants. But I managed to get a few shots of the one that was victorious in the food struggle. I couldn’t tell what it had in its mouth, only that it was big and slimy.
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/1000 Sec - F8 - ISO 400
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/1000 Sec - F8 - ISO 400
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/1000 Sec - F8 - ISO 400
Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/1000 Sec - F8 - ISO 400
And there’s the reason I got the 7D. That higher FPS than the 5D Mark II. Much faster shots getting me more of the action when I needed it.
And then it was time to head back. There was plenty more vacation to be had. And this short trip was more wildlife than I expected to see.