Crappie On My Beak

Anhinga, Everglades National Park with a Crappie on its Beak

Springtime is Here

Another winter of my life passed on by. Still good shooting left in the State. Especially now that it's breeding season, the birds will be in their best color.

Nature Photographers in the Field

The Guru of Avian Photography, Art Morris (immediate foreground with large 500 4.0L lens) and others furing the instructional in the field tour at Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park, last February. His book, the Art of Bird Photography (now in vol. 2), was perhaps the most influential book in my development as a photographer. You can check out Artie's site here.

While the City Slept I Was Greeted to the Beauty of an Everglades Sunrise

Most infidels I know are asleep in their beds at 6:15 a.m. and not in the heart of the swamp like I was last Saturday. Usually 7:00 a.m. is my time of arrival in the Glades for nature work. But it is amazing what getting there one hour earlier will bring. This usually mundane landscape during the day takes on a life of its own at dawn and especially in the minutes before sunrise. As here, even the typically ugly Turkey Buzzard looks majestic perched above the waters of Taylor Slough in Everglades National Park. The shot was taken from the easternmost boardwalk of the Anhinga Trail. I saw, but did not get the shot in time a bunch of river otters that morning. Man they were big. The mist added a sense of eerieness over the landscape that morning and I am now determined to get up at 4:30 a.m. more often to make it there for the light show. As Marjorie Stoneman Douglas remarked, "There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth; remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them...." Until you see the Glades in the light of an early dawn, you've truly never seen it. The birds must take sights like this for granted each morning, but then again, perhaps they know the secret to the universe and laugh at our perpetual quest fto achieve deliverance from our lack of understanding the unknown.

In closing friends, I came upon a new song on Itunes by the great Country singer, Martina McBride and as I've stated previously, once again shows that if one really wants to hear quality music and quality lyrics, they should look towards the Country charts. Rather than the inane lyrics of Fergie and Nelly and Beyonce, here are some lyrics that make you think for a change:

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Anyway

You can spend your whole life building something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway
You can chase a dream that seems so out of reach and you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

God is great, but sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray it doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway

This world's gone crazy and it's hard to believe that tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway
You can love someone with all your heart, for all the right reasons, and in a moment they can choose to walk away
Love 'em anyway

You can pour your soul out singing a song you believe in that tomorrow they'll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway, sing it anyway
I sing, I dream, I love, anyway

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See you in the swamp infidels

Incoming

This is what a double crested cormorant looks like when it's coming head on for you. You better duck folks . . . This birdy was photographed at Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park.

Which speaking on the Glades, it was good to see that the President's budget is asking Congress to spend $ 235 million on the Glades next year. Of this, 64 million would go to fund a comprehensive plan to restore the natural waterflow and ensure safe drinking water. The remainder would to to restoration work and to the park itself.

We could use more money, but times are tough. Let's see how much of the proposed figures survive the congressional debate.

Cormorant Week at the Blog

Seems like I'm only posting pictures of cormorants from Anhinga Trail. Well, here's another one.

Also, my friend Fabiola, a fantastic nature photographer herself took video at last Sunday's photo shoot and captured some nice action with a cormorant and a fish. You can see the video here.

As an aside, when was the last time a major hit song had such powerful lyrics as this one written by Paul McCartney in the late 1960's?

And when the night is cloudy,

there is still a light, that shines on me,

shine until tomorrow, let it be.

I wake up to the sound of music,

mother Mary comes to me,

speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let's see, the number one song today from some artist (I use that term loosely) named Nelly is called "Say it Right", and it goes something like this...

In the day

In the night

Say it all

Say it right

You either got it

Or you don't

You either stand or you fall

When your will is broken

Man that was deep huh? See ya later infidels.