A Few Birds

I do not think of myself as a wildlife photographer for a very good reason: I'm not one. I have to admit my modest camera has pushed me to look at and think about more things that I might otherwise have done, so I have learned to appreciate the lives of birds. Like this turkey vulture at Old Bahia Honda getting ready for lift off. 

I have learned the birds have eagle eyes, oddly enough, and watch for the man lumbering along the trails with the short lens camera. I try not to disturb them but its not often I catch them unawares. 

Herons, egrets, pelicans, spend their winters in the Keys and then disappear to more congenial climes, just like the excess people.

And then other people take their place.

And birds, if you watch them closely enough, do have character:

I have come to enjoy watching them. Watching Fat Albert the Blimp hanging in the sky is not as interesting as you might think...

And don't get me started on dragonflies. I watch them all summer long and they are a total pain to capture with the camera. I did learn dragonflies like to stop at the same spot over and over. However that doesn't mean Rusty will let me hang around and even if he does the light has to be perfect, the angle has to be right and I have to balance the camera perfectly to catch these irritating but beautiful insects.  As it is I make do with brave efforts.

Even Rusty declines to pose. Instagram is filled with dogs poised looking daft dressed in absurd clothes and weird outfits as though they have no natural dignity. Rusty is overloaded with dignity and I'd never dress him up in human clothes or make him perform but I wouldn't mind the occasional pose. No luck.

Better if I stick to flowers and even they try to bend away and stay out of focus on windy days bobbing like clowns. It's a tough life I tell you. I should spend thousands of dollars buying huge lenses and making my wife go mad. All to photograph a bird. Not likely.

Birds On Sticks And In Flight

Sunday needs not many words. 

I gathered a few recent pictures of birds.

Four birds, the fourth is camouflaged:

My camera is not ideal for BIF -birds in flight - and were I to want to be a wildlife photographer I should get a proper set up. I take these pictures merely to serve my pleasure in seeing Nature at work.

The emptiness of the mangroves which I love is heightened by the occasional bird at rest.

Not all birds are completely benign, ospreys lurk... resting between fishing trips. 

And turkey vultures take wide sweeping circles looking for dead meat.

White phase herons have light legs, egrets have dark legs. You decide.

Pelicans, slow and measured in flight like big amphibious airplanes of old.

This one below is a frigate barely visible, carefree above the line worker.

I think these are palm warblers if I got my identification correct, gathered like a choir ready to warble at Old Bahia Honda.

Saturday Afternoon

 It was not a lunch break to spend indoors so I took my big camera (a Panasonic FZ1000 with a one inch sensor and four hundred millimeter lens if you care) and went to look for things to look at. I didn't even get out of the parking lot before I spotted a group of three shady characters loitering in front of the police department:

I got to Garrison Bight and pelicans were floating around, slow and easy to photograph and an elegant reminder that it is winter in Key West:

Winter in Key West, 75 degrees, sunny and a light cool breeze blowing over everything:

There was a fair bit of small boat activity. It is an axioma that the smaller the boat the more it gets used:

Garrison Bight residents watching the traffic from their waterfront home:

A sudden flurry of wings announced the arrival of an unwelcome drop-in:

"That way!" Nautical mansplaining I dare say.

The intruder with the sharp beak took up a position underneath the bridge and quietly watched what was going on. he seemed unwelcome and rather lonely. No one wanted to play with him of be decapitated by him either.                                                                                                        

Houseboat row in the sunshine. They used to be tied up along the seawall on South Roosevelt near the Riviera Canal Bridge. Then a developer decided to build two million dollar condos overlooking that stretch of seawall and the houseboats were deemed unattractive. Money talks and the scruffy houseboats were walked over to the city marina and offered docks in the heart of new town. 

Other boaters live on the city mooring field outside Garrison Bight. They pay a few hundred a month ion an area wide open to north winds and minimally protected from the prevailing south east winds. They get dinghy dockage with showers and trash collection. 

The pigeons watched the boats come and go and wondered when the kestrel might leave.

When I was back at work I got a 911 call from a man who was being yelled at by a couple on one of Key West's narrow lanes. The picture I was painted after some slow patient questioning revealed that he had come across a car stopped in the narrow street blocking his path and he felt they weren't unloading their vehicle fast enough so he tooted his horn. The reaction he got was not a  quick apology and a rush to move the offending vehicle. The mild mannered guy got full on in your face yelling from the busy couple. So he called for help. It's what people do all day and all night in contemporary Key West. In the old days it would be a case of "what up cuz?" and an offer to help unload. I wondered if the pigeons had called 911: "There's a creepy looking bird of prey landed in our midst and upset our afternoon routine, threatening us. Can you come and move him along?" It used to be in Key West you waited and pretended it was cool to be on "island time". Now its all yelling. Be a pigeon.

People ask me when to call 911. Generally I say the time to call is when you are afraid, not when you are angry. Sound advice rarely heeded I fear. 

The self reliant pigeons took up positions on isolated lamp posts with clear views in all directions and waited for the passage of time to remove the intruder.

Winter is the time of year for fighter pilot training at Boca Chica. Every time I see them fly overhead I wonder how soon cheaper drones will knock these romantic expensive planes out of the sky for good. Time and technology waits for no one, as I look at my futuristic pocket phone unimaginable in 1945 when dogfights ruled the air.

That's my pigeon soulmate up there on his own far from the madding crowds, far from any office enjoying the sunshine.

The Birds

I wasn't expecting to see flocks of birds when we got out of the car, Rusty and I. You take what you find.

Winter is when the birds are enjoying the mild climate, just like the people. 

I kept seeing more of them and I kept pointing my camera at them.

I am not by any stretch devoted to wildlife photography, but I do like to record daily life as it happens.

Bird photographers spend thousands on massive lenses and top of the line camera bodies on tripods.

My camera has a long lens but I can't be bothered to use a tripod and all the rest of it. I like the birds.

But I really like how the birds give me a focus to record the keys just looking colorful and good.

Look at the horizon line, the low tide pushing up the brown rocks and the white egrets flying together.

In the picture below the unremarkable flight is hovering above a white ghost - Fat Albert ten miles away.

Not a bird but a mural previously shown on this page. I still like it.

There is a bird in there, down low over the water, possibly a pelican flying into the sunrise.

Pelicans flying low:

A lovely morning away from work and enjoying the flight. Not alone.