I had to travel to West Palm Beach this week for work and decided to drive up early and go to the Wakodahatchee Wetlands at sunrise. I haven’t visited the Wakodahatchee Wetlands in over 6 years. It is probably one of my favorite places to go and photograph birds in flight or birds in general. When bird nesting season is in full swing I don’t know that there is any place in South Florida that is better for consistent all day action. My most recent trip was not different as every clump of trees held numerous colonies of nesting birds, from Great Blue Herons, Anhinga’s, Wood Storks, tri-color herons, cormorants, Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets to name a few. I also saw green herons, roseate spoonbills, ospreys, limpkins, various ducks, purple gallinule and other species. Unfortunately, I did not get to spend much time shooting as I had to be at my first appointment at 8:30, however, I still got a few decent shots.
The best part of Wakodahatchee is that the birds are constantly flying from their nests to the nearby trees to gather more nesting materials or going to get food and returning to feed the chicks. This provides great opportunities to get some bird in flight shots as they come and go. Many times the anhinga’s and the cormorants are also fishing under or near the raised boardwalk providing an opportunity to capture some fish eating shots as well.
One of the things I noticed this time was the large number of iguanas that were present on the levees and even in the trees. I don’t remember seeing them during my last visit but they were plentiful this visit.
