Flights Of Fancy

It's really hard to get a good picture of a bird in flight. This one isn't too bad, but it could be better. The one below is much better. I'd like to have caught more of the green color of the water though. I'm my own worst critic.

That same great blue heron kept flying back and forth across the Venice inlet, so I got several chances to shoot. The photo below is probably the best I got. I love the little bird to the right trying to get out of the way. I also like the fact that I'm in front of the bird. It's rare to catch them flying towards you.

Mother & Child Times Two

I had a chance to visit the Venice Rookery this weekend, and as usual, I got a severe case of lens envy. There were professional photographers out there with 1000mm lenses and $10,000 cameras. So I'm sure their pictures are better than these by a long shot. But mine are still pretty good. In the photo above, you can see a great egret and some pre-babies, errr, I mean eggs, in a nest. And in the photo below, you can see a baby great blue heron with her mother. Imagine the shots I could get with something longer than a 300mm lens. Donations cheerfully accepted.

Dinner Time

Here's a pair of pictures I got Sunday. The great blue heron above has gotten a small snake for dinner. The one below has caught a large fish (with a little help from a human fisherman) and is about to swallow it whole. This makes me appreciate the can of soup I had for dinner so very much more...

More March

The picture this week is yet another rerun that sharp-eyed viewers will remember. I caught this reddish egret in mid-yawn down at Nokomis Beach at the North Jetty. There's some pretty funky stuff going on down in his mouth.

Hat Art

I suppose it could be argued that I'm not the most cultural of folks. But in an attempt to counter that, here's a little bit of high-class sculpture for you. This was out front of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens this morning. I guess it's supposed to represent a woman reading a book while wearing a funny hat and a rather bustled-up dress. OK, whatever.

Rerun

I find myself taking the same pictures over and over again, sometimes in the same spot, sometimes in a different location. Here's another variation on a shot you've seen again and again and again. This sky/water combo was shot at Quick Point Nature Preserve on Longboat Key in Sarasota, Fl.

Blue Eyed Birdie

I love these cormorants, with their bright blue eyes.

March Madness

The calendar page for this week is a rather spectacular bromeliad in the midst of blossoming. This plant is normally all green, but the leaves begin to turn a brilliant red when the time is right. The white bulb near center will continue to grow until it erupts into a large display of purple flowers. Pretty cool, eh? The little round item you see on the bulb is an acorn that fell down from an oak tree above. The leaves on this plant are pretty spiny, so I couldn't get in there and remove it.

Tis The Season

The mating season, that is. Take a close look at this great egret, and you'll see the tell-tale signs that he's ready to breed. The skin around the eyes has turned a bright green, and he's grown long decorative feathers that flow in the breeze. I'm saying it's a he, but I don't know for sure. I think both sexes exhibit these changes.

March, Smarch

It may be the third day of March already, but I've neglected to get you a monthly calendar page. Until now, that is. Here's a great shot of the Cleveland skyline reflected in the Cuyahoga River. This was shot from the Hope Memorial Bridge (again) one day last year. Hard to believe that this is the same river that you've seen in some of my other pictures taken in much more rural areas. At one time, this river was so polluted, it actually caught fire. Not much chance of that these days, though. I waited and waited to try and catch one of the huge ships that ply up and down this river, but to no avail. They are so large I can't imagine how they traverse the winding river, but they do, with the help of very experienced tugboat drivers. Hopefully I'll catch one of those next trip.

A Little Bit Of March

For the beginning of March, I've got this great shot of a large fishy swimming across the front of a large glass tank. Look closely to the left, and you'll see a girl who's entranced by the sight. I shot this at Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is pretty neat, if you've never had the pleasure.

The Last Little Bit Of February

Another week, another photo. We're back in Ohio this week with a quaint barn I stumbled across while slightly lost. I think this was somewhere off 303, but I'm not sure. That dome you see near the center of the roof is actually a silo behind the barn. I think the unique roof shape is due to the need for it to shed snow in the winter. We certainly don't see barns of this shape in Florida. (Hmmm, I seem to have shared this picture before in a different format...)

Peacock (Not Peahen)

I think I mentioned the peacocks of Longboat Key a few weeks ago. Well, here's a quick shot of one from this afternoon. There must have been twenty of them wandering around while I was there. Unfortunately, none of them were doing the classic mating display of the tail feathers, so this head shot is all I have to share. Not too shabby though.

Birds & Bridges

I can never pass up a shot of a big bird in front of a bridge.

With And Without

Today's lesson: The polarizing filter. Take a look at the shot above and compare it to the one below. I took these two pictures today about 5 minutes apart. The one above was through a polarizing filter, the one below without the filter. You can see the shot above has bluer skies and deeper green water. You can also see items in the water that are obscured by reflections in the shot below. That's what the filter filters, reflection. Now you know. What you're looking at, by the way, is a sand dredge. It's removing sand from the bottom of the canal at the north end of Anna Maria Island, and pumping it up onto the beach a few hundred yards away.

No Flowers, Yet

It may not be a pretty flower, but it's a little exotic. I don't know the name of it, but the little group of plants you see here are some sort of orchid. Each of the bulbs is an individual plant, and each one sprouts a single leaf. Later on in the year, each of these will put out a single sprig of flowers. The only place I've ever seen these is along the Manatee River in the Desoto National Memorial in Bradenton, FL.

Where, Part Deux

Here's another hint for those of you who are slow on the uptake.

Where In The World Is Ernie (Not Bert)?

Wanna guess where I was this weekend?

The Middle Of February

You don't live in Florida for very long without getting very close to some alligators. I stumbled across this guy at the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island here in Florida. I didn't hang around him any longer than it took to get this picture.

Boring Hawk Shot

Another day, another hawk. Pretty much every week, I see hawks on the way home. Today, as usual, it was this red-shoulder fellow. I don't know if it's always the same one, or one of the same pair. I sort of doubt it. I think it's a couple of different pair, or maybe even three pair. Anyhow, here's a not-so-exciting, non-action shot, but at least you can see the banding on the tail quite clearly. Enjoy!

Scarred Sunrise

As part of an ongoing tradition, here's another marvelous sunrise scarred by some inconvenient power lines. This was the view this morning from work. It was more spectacular in person, but I wasn't able to catch it with my lens. I know some of you folks don't like it when I point out the faults with my own pictures, but they really stand out to me.

Just For Kicks

I noticed in my logs that someone had run my blog through a translator. I'd never thought to do that. So if you're curious, have a look at what I might sound like in Spanish. Or German, perhaps. How about French? You didn't know I was so literate, did you? Not bad for a boy who's only left the country once. Wait, you haven't seen anything yet. Chinese, Japanese, Korean? I'm all over the place! (OK, so those don't work so well if you don't have the correct language packs and fonts installed.) Back to some countries that use the western alphabet. Here's Italian & Portuguese. Why don't they have Russian? I wish I had a picture to go with this.

Happy Valentine's Day

Just in time for St. Valentine's Day, a blossoming bombax tree for your enjoyment. Those flowers are about 6" across, and the bud below is almost three inches tall.

The Week In February With Valentine's Day In It

Here's another great sunset for all my fans out there (both of you). This is Egmont Key in Tampa Bay, Florida. You can see the small lighthouse out on the island, and if you look closely, it's lit! I don't know how many pictures I had to take to get one where the light was pointed in the right direction. There are no bridges to this island, you have to take a ferry to visit it. This shot was taken from Ft. Desoto, which has been very well documented here on the blog.

Flower 'N Tree

Here are some more flowering trees to show you what life is like in Florida in the winter. I shot these a couple of weekends ago out on Longboat Key. These clusters of red flowers are on an African Tulip Tree (Spathodea Companulata). It took me a long time to figure out what the name of the tree was, but sometimes you just get lucky and happen to stumble across a name. It also helps to have a little competition. (Big thanks to you-know-who-you-are!) I've only ever seen these trees in one place in front of a resort out on Longboat, the red ones on one side of the road, and a single yellow-blossomed tree on the other. I may have thrown a shot of this same flower up on the blog last year sometime in hopes that someone could identify it, but I can't find that post now, and no one ever offered any help. (Ha! Found it!)

A Second Glance

They say the devil is in the details, but evidently, so are the dolphins. The shot above is one of the many pictures I took Sunday. I shot it only a few minutes later than this other shot I showed you yesterday that I felt was much better. This shot was from up on a bridge about 60 feet above the waterline, and I thought it would be nice with the boat leaving a sharp white trail across the green water. It wasn't as nice as I wanted, so I breezed past it when posting last night. But today I flip by it again and notice something that I missed before. Look in the water down beneath the boat. Yep, there's a dolphin in there. You can clearly see him in the detail below. He's there in the shot before this one as well (but only as a vague shadow in the water), but not in the next shot. Those shots are only separated by about a third of a second, so this guy is fast! It was only last week that I got a semi-decent dolphin picture, so maybe my marine mammal luck is changing.

The First Full Week In February

This week's calendar page is the Cleveland skyline. I think I shot this from the Hope Memorial Bridge, which was named after Bob Hope's father. Small world, I know...

Super Sunday, Volume Eight

As promised below, here's that same tree again, only this time it sports a pair of ospreys. Pretty rare to see two of them together like this, outside of a nest. There was a crowd of people gathered along the side of the road, all pointing and shooting pictures. I'd have loved to capture one or both of these birds hunting like I did before, but no such luck.

Super Sunday, Volume Seven

And the birds just keep coming. Here's a wood stork. These have to be one of the ugliest birds out there. I've seen buzzards I thought were more attractive than these fellows.

Super Sunday, Volume Six

I'm guessing some little kid had a little help from his dad on this one...

Super Sunday, Volume Five

There's just something about birds that fascinates me. Here's an ibis. No, I didn't go to Egypt, this ibis comes from Ft. Desoto, south of St. Pete. Same place as the pelican just below.

Super Sunday, Volume Four

Notice how this pelican has a dark head? That means it's a juvenile. As he gets older, it'll turn white. I'm getting much better at taking pictures of birds on the wing, don't you think? It's taken long enough.

Super Sunday, Volume Three

It may not be a hawk on the wing like I got up in Ohio, but I think the composition on this one is pretty impressive. Yep, that's the moon you see behind this red-shouldered hawk. He was sitting in a dead tree up at Ft. Desoto near St. Pete today. You'll see this same tree again later tonight, if I don't get bored with posting early.

Super Sunday, Volume Two

It's February, but it's Florida, so the trees are starting to bloom. Hard to believe, but true.

I've been looking at these trees for years, and I think today is the first time I've noticed the yellow centers on these blossoms. The flowers always look beatup for some reason, not sure why. I'm also not sure of the name. I know I used to know it, but I seem to be drawing a blank right now. I spot this at the credit union this morning. Gotta love flowers at the bank. Later in the year they get yellow flowers, too.

Super Sunday, Volume One

"Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry"-The Beatles.

(I've been waiting forever to use that quote. I had to find just the right picture.) This was the view along the northern approach of the Sunshine Skyway this morning. I love my polarizing filter.

Cat Without Hat

Here, you haven't seen a new picture of the cat in a while. She still looks the same, though.

Beauty At The Beach

Here's another gem from last weekend. I'm trying to remember what these are called. They grow near the coast sometimes because they like dry conditions, which is what you get there. All that water, but few plants can use it. These plants have leaves that are fleshy to hold excess moisture, and they are encircled by little plantlets that fall off and create new plants. They can be quite invasive in certain areas. Kalanchoe, that's the name I'm looking for. Lots of different forms out there, but I think these are the most attractive.

That Old House

More than one of you requested a picture of the house I mentioned yesterday, so here you go. This picture is probably 4 or 5 years old, but it pretty much looks the same still. You can see the fish over there on the left. The dock appears curved due to the odd perspective I used to fit it into the frame. Well, it's actually a stitched-together panorama of 5 or 6 pictures, not a single picture using a fisheye lens. I thought for a long time that this house had a name, Land's End, but I later found out that was the name of the old subdivison it's in. You can see the sign way over on the right by the house above, or in the detail below, which I shot last weekend. This is the very northernmost tip of Longboat Key, FL, which is the only part of the island not covered in high-rise condos or golf courses. They have wild peacocks roaming around there, too, but that's a photo for another day.

A Few Days In February

Here's the other calendar page for today, this time for just the week. And didn't we just see this fish a couple of days ago? I think so... I need to start visiting more places. Anyhow, this is Longboat Pass, shot from the north end of Longboat Key, FL. The hammock you see to the right is at the end of a long dock that belongs to a small beach cottage that is probably my favorite house on the whole island. If it ever comes on the market, I may have to sell one of my kidneys to try and buy it. I'll have to post a picture of it someday. It's not big, or beautiful, and it certainly wouldn't be the place you'd want to go in the event of a hurricane (at most, it's 3 feet above sea level), but the view can't be beat. I suspect the fish belongs to the owners of the house and the dock, but I'm not sure.

February

First day of the month, so you get two calendar pages today. This first one is for the whole month. You're looking at the Everett Road covered bridge in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. I shot this last August, and I revisited the bridge during my visit last month. The exact spot where I shot this photo was under a foot or more of water on the most recent visit. For the sticklers out there, this is not the original bridge. I believe the original was destroyed by a flood sometime in the 70s, and the one you see here was built about a decade later. It's closed to vehicular traffic, but you often see horses & their riders trekking across it. (Well, often is a relative thing. I've been there twice and seen it happen once. Is 50% of the time considered often?)

Once again, I seem to be repeating myself in this blog...

A Little Bit More January

Whoops! I've waited until Tuesday again to post my weekly picture. And there's two more for tomorrow, since it's the first day of the new month. You guys and gals need to do a better job of reminding me about these things.

Anyhoo, what we have here is sunset over Lake Erie. The small lighthouse on the left marks the entrance to the Cuyahoga River. This was shot during my trip to Ohio last year, not the trip a couple of weeks ago. I think I remarked a few days ago that I lived in one of the most beautiful spots on the planet. Well, that's still true, but I also believe that every spot has some beauty in it. Even wherever you're at.