Parting shots - Taking Flight
Fish crow at Boat Launch #1 - Canaveral National Seashore NSB Nikon Z9 with Z 180-600 @ 600mm 1/1600 sec, f/8, ISO 1100
One final trip down to Canaveral National Seashore with now special targets in mind…..lets just see what nature has to offer this morning. It did not take long to figure out today’s theme. This week in Florida being the last of the season for us, my posts have been “Parting shots” and one of the first shots of today was a Fish crow taking flight. How appropriate! Now, I have to find a set of images that reflect that the thought of Sharon and I “taking flight” in another day or two.
At ElDora, only a short distance into the park, I was reminded of a shot that I took last year of a Northern parula which was in keeping with the topic of the day.
The next shot I decided upon was not so easy. The fields around the old ElDora House are a magnet for Great Southern White butterflies. Butterflies do not generally like to sit in one spot for very long. Land on a nectar rich flower, get a couple of sips, and move on. Trying to time their take offs and being quick enough to react to their flight is no easy feat. Thank God that Nikon has incorporated a feature called “Pre-burst” into their new mirrorless cameras. It actually takes some shots and puts them into the camera’s “buffer” before you push shutter for the final shot. Even then, getting the shot and also getting it in focus is quite a challenge. After some time and many many exposures, I finally did mange to capture a few (very few) acceptable pictures, one of which I deemed worthy of “blog-inclusion”. Here is a Great Southern White “taking flight”,
The final avian subject of today’s theme “Taking flight” is the iconic Osprey soaring overhead. Seemed like this beauty was insistent upon being included in today’s post.
And while some of you may question my inclusion of this last blog participant, in the eye’s of a fellow tortoise, he would more than likely have been considered to be moving along at a break-neck clip. Apparently, all that vegetation just up ahead looked better than what he was eating at the moment. Indeed, the final seconds of the following video does find the tortoise feasting upon a tasty bit of flora with extra gusto. Florida has been a natural wonderland once again this winter and we are already looking forward to seeing what the winter of 2026 will bring. But for now, it is back up to the north country and New York as we chase the migrating warblers making our Journey North together.
