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ALLAN BOVEE - PHOTOGRAPHY ADVENTURES IN NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY JUNE 2007 After my first show in Florida this winter, I had a few days before I had to move camp to the other side of the state. I wanted to drive to the very southern tip of Florida and visit the Everglades, Fakahatchie, and Big Cypress, and at least drive through it since I would not be doing any shows down there and wouldn't have another chance to see it. Last year I spent nearly three weeks in the area but now all I could spend was one day. After driving through the congestion of Naples, I finally reached US-41, the Tamiami Trail, my old favorite road, and headed east towards Miami and into the rising sun. A lot of changes have come to Florida since all the years I have been going there, but still this road is a wonderful drive. I remembered the first year I came down here and was in complete awe at all the wading birds in the trees and ditches along the way. You learn quickly not to slow down or stop as this is a high speed highway and no one slows for anything and so you can cause an accident or get run over. It is easy to see why the Florida panther, a species with only thirty or so left in the wild and counting down, which despite the tremendous effort by conservation officials, still find its number one killer is the automobile. But I have learned all the pull-offs and secret stopping places where wildlife and scenery can be watched and photographed.
It was one of those times where I get to
feeling lazy or maybe feeling my age and don't want to go through all the work
of assembling my camera equipment and stalking the bird only to see it fly away
at the last second. But I knew I had something here and despite nine times out
of ten ending in failure I decided to go for it. I quickly set up my tripod and
mounted my 500 mm lens and in a rather strange move, I mounted my D70, my
digital Nikon camera, on the lens making it the first attempt at a serious photo shoot
without using film. As I threw the gear on my shoulder and started walking
toward the perched bird, I could see it watching me and looking like it was
going to take off at any second. I walked a very wide semi-circle trying to give
the bird the impression I was not approaching it but going the other way. As I
walked through the waist high, wet marsh grass, I kept one eye on my bird and
the other on the ground in case there might be a resting rattlesnake there. When
the bird started to hunch down like it was going to bolt, I immediately stopped
and started talking to it, making short soft whistles and squeaks to keep the
bird interested. I was amazed when I realized I had gotten to the other side of
the bird and now had the excellent morning light on the bird and hadn't even got
bitten by diamond-backed rattlesnake. I set up the tripod and began shooting,
slowly
moving forward, and making the noises which made the bird look at me as
if I were an idiot. But I got some decent shots and could review my work in the
digital camera as I shot, adjusting exposure with the histogram and got to the
point where he was filling the frame. By now I realized I had a snail kite, a
very rare bird in Florida, probably as numerous as the panther. I had spent a
whole day about fifty miles east of this spot trying to get a photograph of one
I found some years ago while it was hunting snails in the Everglades but never
really got anything of quality. Here I was so close I could see the rising sun
in his eye. Suddenly, from around the corner by my van, an ATV came roaring around on a path by me and scared the kite off. As the driver flew by me all I could do was wave so he would see me and not run me over. I was disappointed but felt I had some good shots and went back to the van. When I looked back, to my amazement, the kite had returned to the same spot on the wire. So I repeated my maneuver again and found myself in the same place and shooting some more great photos. This time after a couple of minutes the kite flew off on his own. So I returned to the van again and started to heat my tea, when looking back the bird was back again. I hadn't put anything away and so returned back to the other side and set up to shoot. This time, I couldn't believe it, but the bird was a female snail kite! So I had a pair here and they were both checking me out and would probably be nesting soon. When she flew off I returned to the van, heated my tea, and continued my south Florida tour. On the return trip, the birds were back on the wire but by now the sun had risen to the horrid midday intensity and I didn't bother to stop at all. The kites have an incredible ability to fly. Where most birds seem to have to make an intense effort to stay in the air, the kites move about effortlessly. When a wind buffets other birds, they change their shape and careen headlong into it with a great deal of effort while the kites seem to relish it and waffle and sail about and almost seem to enjoy it. As I explained in an earlier essay, the kites we buy and fly with the string attached were named after the bird, not the other way around. Watching these birds fly is where someone named the toys after them. These particular kites feed only on the large apple snail found in the Everglades and have a rather long hooked beak adapted for the purpose of prying out the snail meat from the shell. The photographs of the snail kites on a wire may be objectionable to some people and many of my contemporaries would probably have the wire removed and replaced by branch using Photoshop or something. I like the image as it is. Here is a pair of enduring birds that despite all the changes made by man to south Florida, are still thriving and pairing up to nest. It is always good to find the rare and beautiful still surviving. The fact that they land on a manmade object seems rather appropriate. Return to PHOTOGRAPHY JOURNAL main page. Date this page was edited: June 13, 2007. |
A
couple of miles pass the Collier-Seminole State Park where I camped last year, I
pulled off onto a gravel road that leads back to an aggregate facility. I was
going to heat up a cup of tea to enjoy while I continued my drive. As I slowed
to a stop I noticed a hawk-like bird gliding to a landing on a power line along
the road. I figured it to be a red-shouldered hawk which are common in south
Florida but just before it landed it went into a floating, hovering mode and
then stopped on the wire. A kite? I thought so but I couldn't see to identify it
as it was completely backlit in the eastern sun and only appeared as a
silhouette. 