Nature & Wildlife

Downy Woodpecker neighbor on palm tree in St. Petersburg Florida

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Downy Woodpecker on palm tree - one of my neighbors - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/4 ISO 200 1/500thOn weekday afternoons while I am at my desk editing photos or putting up blog posts like this one, I often hear a dull, repetitive sound coming from just beyond the back patio.  The sound signals my neighbor, a downy woodpecker, has returned to work on the three cabbage palms in my backyard.  He (or she) is a small fellow and my longest lens is only 200mm, so I never really thought to try and photograph the woodpecker before.  Well yesterday the downy woodpecker was pecking away a bit lower in the tree and with a bit of cropping, I was able to produce the above shot.  

Downy Woodpecker on cabbage palm in St. Petersburg FloridaIt seems strange doesn't it to see a woodpecker on a palm tree?

A reddish egret at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve St. Petersburg Florida

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Reddish Egret - Boyd Hill Nature Preserve, St. Petersburg FL - this image available for fine art print purchase & commercial license - Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro @ f/11 ISO 200 1/250th tripod mounted with cable releaseI spent a recent afternoon in the peaceful Boyd Hill Nature Preserve on a macro themed shoot.  When I do personal shooting I like to give myself a focus, a theme, for that time in order to have a clear photographic goal.  My goal that afternoon was to produce macro images.  However, that did not mean I would just pass up a chance to photograph this reddish egret friend just relaxing on a small bridge to a small island.  I approached the reddish egret carefully by advancing a little, then stopping, never looking directly at the bird, advancing a little more, then stopping.  I did not move for a few moments, then casually set up the shot.  My Nikon D300 was mounted to my tripod with Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens attached, so I had to get pretty close to be able to fill the frame with the reddish egret.  

I made sure to have calm feelings inside of me as well giving the bird nothing to pick up and feel anxious itself about.  I was able to photograph the bird as close as I wanted and then even picked up my DSLR and tripod and walked past the reddish egret without it flying off.  After I did my exploring of the small island and returned to the bridge, the bird was gone.  

I was glad to be able to share a few moments with this creature and to also be able to photograph it.

Brown Pelican Bird in Flight St. Petersburg Florida Fine Art Nature Photography

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Brown Pelican preparing to dive St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250th

Regular followers of my nature posts will know that I am very fond of photographing the many local brown pelicans in my St. Petersburg, Florida neighborhood.  I have not yet achieved my long-term goal of photographing a pelican skimming just over the water, but I was glad to be able to add these images to my pelican portfolio.  On Saturday pelicans were regularly diving out of the sky into the water for fish around The Pier.  Once getting the settings dialed in using shutter priority mode and multi-point focus, it was just a matter of tracking the birds fast enough as they made their dives.

Brown Pelican on an aerial fish survey - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/1250thThis collection of pelican images focuses on the birds as they are about to make a plunge into Tampa Bay hoping to come up with a beak-full of small silvery fish.  Observing a bird's behavior is key to being able to capture the photographs one wants.  I watched where and how they circled and what they did with their wings right before their split second descents.

Brown Pelican wings arced for diving in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/1000thDuring this shoot I also became, at long last, a believer in shutter priority mode.  With the pelicans diving from a bright blue sky background down to the dark waters of Tampa Bay, I knew what shutter speed I needed to freeze their flight, but adjusting the aperture constantly to maintain the correct exposure would have been nearly impossible.  Thus, shutter priority was the best exposure mode to use for these bird-in-flight images.

Brown Pelican hovering before diving in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4.5 ISO 200 1/1250thI also used multi-point focus because I was able for the most part to fill the frame with the pelicans, allowing the 21-focus points to act as a net.  If I could not fill the frame with the pelicans, well, I probably would not even push the shutter, but in that case I would use a single focus point to place right on the bird to distinguish it from any other possible background elements.  In relative close-up shots like these, the multi-focus point setting gave me the best chance of landing a focus point on the subject (pelican) where a single focus point might get lost under a single wing flap.

Visit The Pier for great pelican and bird-in-flight photography opportunities:


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    • Boyd Hill Nature Preserve Macro Photography St. Petersburg Florida

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    Something small will emerge in Boyd Hill Nature Preserve - Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro @ f/11 ISO 200 1/40th tripod mounted with cable release Strobist: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight @ 1/16th power handheld to frame left-frontBoyd Hill Nature Preserve is less than twenty minutes from my front door, but in nearly three years I have never visited it.  This is mostly due to the fact the park does not allow dogs and I prefer to visit such places with beloved puppy, Kiki.  However, I was feeling restless today and could not concentrate well so thought this was a chance to go out and just make some photographs for my own personal enjoyment wiht just me and my tripod.

    Small green leaf in Boyd Hill Nature Preserve - Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/100th tripod mounted with cable release Strobist: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight @ 1/16th power handheld to frame left-frontI decided before I stepped out the door to only bring my trusty macro lens, the Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G.  I also decided to work the entire time from on my Induro CT214 tripod.  I highly recommend approaching personal photography projects in this way.  For the first ten minutes walking in the forest I just observed, camera and tripod still in their bags.  I did not want to spend the entire time behind the lens.

    Lady bug in Boyd Hill Nature Preserve - Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro @ f/22 ISO 200 1/60th tripod mounted with cable release Strobist: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight @ 1/16th power handheld to frame left-frontI came across some flowering plants which were a busy intersection for a variety of insects.  There was one lady bug tucked away in some leaves perhaps napping.  The challenge with macro photography in the field is that things move.  As you can see I used f/22 and still was working with a crazy shallow DoF due to the properties of the macro lens.  Therefore, even a 1 millimeter sway in the wind by the plant can throw off a carefully calculated manual focus on a subject.  I recommend picking a day with no wind for macro photography.

    A small relative of Mothra's perhaps in Boyd Hill Nature Preserve - Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro @ f/22 ISO 200 1/60th tripod mounted with cable releaseThere was a monarch butterfly proudly fluttering about, as well as a gulf fritillary butterfly, but only the above moth was willing to stay put long enough to be photographed.  

    It was a pleasant time in Boyd Hill Nature Preserve.  Admission is $3 and you are not allowed to bring any food or drink on the trails.  Visit their official website for more details.


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    Banyan Trees of Cape Coral Florida Rotary Park

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    Banyan trees in Rotary Park Cape Coral Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160th

    This year I have started to look for and photograph banyan trees on purpose.  The trees above are not from my current home of St. Petersburg, Florida, but from my distant past home of Cape Coral.  I chose this unusual composition and framing purposefully by positioning myself so that the background tree would be clean (not overlapping the foreground tree).  I wanted to exaggerate the distance between the trees as well to create in my mind a duality.  To me, the foreground tree is how one sees a tree in actuality, while the background tree is how one sees a tree in one's mind.

    Double Headed Cabbage Palm of Cape Coral Florida State Tree

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    A rare double headed cabbage palm in Cape Coral Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/320thI would say that this double headed cabbage palm is the most famous object in all of Cape Coral, Florida.  I cannot even think what the second most would be.  The cabbage palm itself, in normal single head form, is the Florida state tree.  Personally, I think the cabbage palm is perhaps the least good looking of all palm trees in Florida.

    While visiting Cape Coral a few years ago someone tipped me off to the existence of this most unusual tree.  I was able to find it, but I cannot recall the reason why I did not photograph it at that time.  This time I sought it out prepared to shoot it. 

    It does not hold any hallowed ground, living its life in a very humble bit of land that serves as the median of a suburban road in a little traveled part of Cape Coral.  

    If you would like to visit the most famous denizen of Cape Coral, you can find it here:


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    The Moon besides Venus astrophotography

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    Moon & Venus side-by-side - Nikon D300 with Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/200th on Induro CT214 with Nikon MC-30 cable releaseAs I was driving home from the dog park yesterday evening with Kiki, I noticed the Moon and Venus in unusual positions:  side-by-side of each other.  Usually I find Venus to be below the Moon.  In the above photograph this does not look as peculiar as it did to the naked eye, but in order for Venus to show up in the shot at all, I had to fill the frame with them as much as possible.  It kind of looked like they were friends, just hanging out next to each other.  

    This is a very easy kind of astrophotograph to make, if you use manual mode.  One must choose a shutter speed carefully.  Too long of a shutter speed, even like 1/80th of a second will result in the moon looking just like a white disc.  So the one tricky part was finding a balance of exposing the Moon as well as possible while still having Venus be visible.

    Also, even though I used a relatively fast shutter speed of 1/200th, handholding this type of shot is not advised.  Using a stable tripod makes it much easier.  In addition, I used a cable release to further reduce shake.  There is no money better spent in photography than on a no-compromises tripod.

    this image is available for commercial license & fine art print - contact Jason today