Tag: Flamingo

Perseid Meteor Shower 2015

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The conditions for the Perseid Meteor Shower this year were ideal so myself and a photographer friend, Robert Chaplin, ran out to the Everglades to see if we could capture some in photographs. It turned out we could.

For this meteor shower we had planned to head over to the Big Cypress National Preserve but due to less than ideal weather conditions made a last minute call to head south to Flamingo in Everglades National Park instead. Except for the mosquitoes it turned out to be a good decision that resulted in some good images. I even managed to capture a lightning bolt to go along with the milky way and meteors.

The Flamingo campground area provided a good variety of foreground subject to use to anchor the vast sky and compliment the shooting stars. The meteor shower peaked between 3 and 4:30 in the morning. During the peak I was seeing a meteor almost every second with numerous bright fireballs.

It was definitely worth the mosquito bites and the lack of sleep. I am already looking forward to Decembers Geminids.

Everglades National Park Bobcat

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I had planned on going out this past Thursday night/Friday morning to shoot the Quadrantids Meteor shower but a cold front came through making seeing the stars impossible.  I therefore, settled for trying to shoot a sunrise and then doing a little exploring before heading back to the office for some work.  The sunrise was only mediocre, again due to the cloud cover from the cold front.  I also tried shooting a wort grass prairie but again did not capture anything good.

The highlight of the trip came from spotting a bobcat on Bear Lake Road while looking for some orchids.  The bobcat stayed on the road for quite some time giving me the opportunity to change lenses and get off a few shots before he disappeared into the woods.  I captured one image that was ok but required alot of cropping to make it usable.  It works for a documentary shot if nothing else.

Here are a few images from the trip.  Click on Thumbnail for full image.

Everglades Sunrise, Birds in Flight and Cypress Dome Walk

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I went out last week to capture a sunrise down in Flamingo, Florida.  I took a few reflection pictures across the water as the sun came up.  After the sunrise I went to Eco Pond to try and capture some bird in flight pictures.  The birds have started to thin out after reaching a peak a few weeks ago.  There were still a good number of Roseate Spoonbills, Egrets, Heron’s and other birds but not like there had been the last few weeks.  I ended up with a few I liked.

After the birds stopped performing, I started heading back toward the park entrance.  I made one last stop to explore a cypress dome I had never walked into before.  It was a great find and I plan on going back to try and take more pictures there in the future.  Inside the cypress dome, I found resident gators, birds, and three water moccasins.  I also found numerous orchids of different varieties including some very large and rare cigar orchids.