Hello Bird Photographers,
First off, I would like to wish you and yours and all of our subscribers
a wonderful and healthy 2000; we here at BIRDS AS ART sincerely hope
that each and every one of you has the opportunity to produce many
stunning images in the coming year. Personally, I feel truly blessed in
that I get to do the what I love best to do, and what I do best, on a
daily basis. In addition, 1999 was a hugely successful year at here at
BIRDS AS ART. A special thanks goes to all those who joined us in 1999
on an IPT. Another wonderful happening last year was the birth of my
first grandchild, Samuel Henry Egensteiner, to my son-in-law Erik and
the Executive Director and Business Manager of BIRDS AS ART, my older
daughter Jennifer Morris. It is a pleasure seeing Sammy in my home
office each day (that I am home).
I spent a busman's holiday on Sanibel for ten days during the holidays.
Ding Darling was poor overall. The first few days, with cold north
winds were dismal, with few birds at all on the refuge. As the weather
got nicer, there were a few decent mornings with some spoonbills at the
Cross Dike, and a few small feeding sprees in the second pool close to
the road. Unfortunately, the water level in the Tower Pool is being
kept too high to allow for good photography. This is hard to
understand, as extensive work was done on the water control systems this
past summer. My understanding is that when the water level was lowered
many weeks ago, the photography in the Tower Pool was excellent. Then
it rained and the water level has not lowered again...... Even more
frustrating is the fact that the wonderful dead tree on the main road
by the cross dike was apparently removed when the water control valves
were being worked on. This tree was home to a pair of cooperative
Pileated Woodpeckers last year and at least one pair of Red-bellied
Woodpeckers. In addition, Tom Vezo got to photograph two Red-shouldered
Hawks copulating atop the tall snag two years ago. How sad. And
possibly needless........
The action at the fishing pier was generally good with lots of tame
pelicans and a variety of ridiculously cooperative herons and egrets
present on most afternoons. On most days, the action there is best in
late afternoon when the successful fisherman begin to clean their
catches. On days when the fishing has been poor, photography has
suffered. Though Sanibel and Captiva are connected as a single island
by a substantial sandbar, opportunities at Blind Pass were good to
excellent, with lots of tame Royal and Sandwich Terns and Laughing and
Ring-billed Gulls. A Great White Heron appeared nearly every morning
about three hundreds yards onto Captiva Island. Yours truly got to
photograph this white color morph of Great Blue Heron (rare on Sanibel)
threat displaying against a regular GBH. It was spectacular, with the
white bird chasing the gray one down the beach with her wings
outstretched and lowered. I used the Canon 100-400 mm Image Stabilizer
lens which allowed me to zoom in and out and include either both birds
or a single bird.
I visited Estero Lagoon only once and it was superb as usual, with lots
of feeding birds including White Ibis, Snowy and Great Egrets, the
reliable white phase Reddish Egrets (there are at least two present
again this year), Whimbrel, Oystercatcher, winter plumage Red Knots, and
many other shorebird, wading bird, gull, and tern species present among
others. Several other photographers stated that Estero had been
phenomenal for several days. But best of all was getting to meet Tim
Fitzharris for the first time. He is a very nice man. I also met his
beautiful wife, Joy, and their 2 1/2 year old son, Jessie. I told Tim
that his early work influenced the development of my style more than
that of any other photographer. I saw the wonderful clean backgrounds
that he produced while working from a floating blind, and said "I want
to do that." Vivid in my memory are Great Blue Heron with lettuce and
Tim's amazing White-winged Scoter images. We spent the better part of
two mornings together, mostly griping about the things that bug us about
being in the business--you'd have thought that we just hate our jobs if
you were listening in. We spent the second morning at Venice, where the
photography has been excellent for several weeks.
Directions to all of the above mentioned sites can be found in the
Hotspots section of my Amphoto book, "The Art of Bird Photography."
(You can order a signed copy off of my web site.) If you do make it to
FLA in the next few months, you should leave happy.
Best and Great Picture Making,
Artie
P.S. A new tour schedule will follow quite soon.
