Posted by Paul L. on February 09, 2004 at 19:23:53:
In Reply to: Wakodahatchee posted by Paul on February 09, 2004 at 07:03:48:
: Paul L. and the "other Paul",(me) spent the morning with EllieW at Okeehelee off of Forest Hill Blvd in WPB on Sunday. Nothing brand new here, BUT, for photographers who don't want to use 1000 mm lenses to capture great pictures, this is it. At one moment we saw three male and five female pained buntings on the ground with three more in the high feeder, while an ovenbird peeked out from the palmettos and a brown thrasher was pecking away at safflower seed. Which picture to take? Then came two indigo buntings, one in color change and the other a female. I mean to tell you the cameras were smoking and the film cartridges were like shell casings on the ground.
: As Paul-B says, "Life is good..." Until, life got better.
: A prairie warbler landed in the Hamelia Patens to our front, so close we couldn't believe it. Maybe six feet. Great, huh? Well sir, then it began to feed in our direction, five feet, four feet, jeez! It came to the tip of the lens. We had to back up to focus. At one point the bird was stationary for 20 seconds (an eternity when you have auto-focus) and just looked at us. We were looking for the wide angle lens this bird was so close. A once in a lifetime treat. And all the time the buntings were bathing, feeding, flitting, and the thrasher was feeding and dodging the squirrel, and the ovenbird was hopping around.
: Paul-L came thirty minutes too late for that part of the show but the spectators that gathered behind us said that "we" were the show as we scrambled for lens changes, cameras, angles, and more film. They were such nice quiet Audubon people ( I know that is a redundancy) that we never know they were there.
: A very good shot, at a very small feeding grotto, in a very pretty state.
To the other Paul: What is a "pained bunting?" Should we call a docktor?