A diary (of sorts) on my recent Florida Birding trip!

Pre-amble
Back in September 2009 I sounded out a few like-minded compadres for a trip to Florida. I booked the flights via Expedia and then spent the next month or so looking into Villa rentals. The flights worked out ~£535 each including a 4×4 for the week.

Onto the villa, there’s a lot of villas for rent in Florida. most of them fit the typical 3-4 bed bungalow format with a pool, located on an small housing estate about a mile off a freeway. Prices vary between £500-£1000 per week and have everything you could want, assuming that your a family visiting Disneyland or any one of the numerous theme parks.

We wanted something different!

It had to be close to Sanibel, close to basic amenities and close to a wildlife refuge. The rationale being, that if the weather turns, you still have something on your doorstep.

Searching the internet via Vacation Rentals, I found a place on Rabbit Road, Sanibel. Yes!, less than a mile from Ding Darling. The accommodation looked comfortable, 3 beds (2 double and 1 twin), two bathrooms, open plan lounge / diner, a covered (mosquito netted) patio and they reckon it sleeps 6.

I contacted the owner and got a price of £880 e.g. £220 each for 4, bringing the total cost per person to £755 plus spending.

Booked it was, although I had to add a $500 deposit to the cashflow.

Counting the months and days down before we went was interesting. I got paranoid about the carry on, which in turn saw 3 of us buying new Think Tank rucksacks for the trip (another £180). Our carrier was American Airlines and they have quite a liberal carry on policy (14kg). We were almost packed and ready to go, only to hear about some lunatic with an elastoplast full of explosive, which raised the security alert for all international flights. AA subsequently reduced the number of carry on items to one, but retained 14kg limit (phew!).

Getting there
I managed to talk the wife into taking 3 of us up to Heathrow and we left my house at 3:00pm for an 20:10 flight to New York. Yes, we had a connecting flight. We breezed through customs with the Think Tanks, boarded the plane at Heathrow (on time) and arrived at New York just before midnight.

Our connecting flight wasn’t until 5:45am, so we had some time to kill.

So why a connecting flight? For one, it’s cheaper and secondly, you can do all your immigration before jumping on a domestic flight. Anyhow, Immigration was interesting! One has to complete an ESTA before going to the US. This is supposed to supersede the green card. Not true, you still have to fill one out, get your retina scanned and smudges done, Unless of course you are Mr Harper! Mr Harper gets marched off to the rubber glove room…For some reason a 6ft 3″ white guy was on the watch list. “Leave your bag outside” they said…Mr Harper wasn’t at all impressed with £25k of camera gear sitting in a lobby unattended. Anyhow, nothing untoward happened and he was free to go (mistaken identity). So we then made our way to baggage reclaim and our connecting flight. Low and behold, security wouldn’t let us through until 3 hours before. So we sat in the main lobby for 3 hours, with Malc and me nipping out for cigarette while clock watching.

We boarded the flight to Miami at 5:45am and arrived at 9:00am. Collected our luggage and picked up the transit bus to “El cheapo” car rental. The car rental didn’t have a Jeep Grand Cherokee 4×4 available and tried get us to upgrade to a Tahoe. After 30mins of haggling, a Cherokee turned up and the two Satnavs (one hired, the other John H’s) were set for destination Sanibel.

We grabbed breakfast at a square burger place (Wendy’s) on the outskirts of Miami and joined Alligator Alley (I75) for 250 mile drive. Ain’t that road straight! The 4×4 ate petrol at a staggering 18-20mpg, but at least it was only $3 per gallon.

Arrival
We arrived at our villa rental at around 3:00pm. First impressions were good, Chris and John H shared the twin (as they snore like bison), Malc had the master bedroom with ensuite and I had the double on the other side of the building.

As a side note, there was a put up bed in the lounge and a small room behind the master that could easily house a camp bed. We reckon, that it could sleep 6 individuals at a push and probably 8 if two couples used the doubles. Food for thought!

Within an hour we had uupacked and meandered our way over to Sanibel Pier (~2 miles away). Low and behold our first Osprey nest on a tree next to the pier’s entrance. The light was fading and it looked grim, but we did have our first Osprey pics!

Back to the Cabin, we all plugged in the notebooks and offloaded 2Gb of Osprey shots, feeling chuffed – well at least we had a record. We then set off provision hunting! About a mile away was great traders store which had all the essentials, crisps, beer, orange juice and more crisps!

Back to the Cabin, we decided to give our local sports bar – Doc Ford’s a try for dinner. This was literally walking distance and served some great food. Prices varied between $12 to $25 for a Club Sandwich to a large meal. Believe me, a club sandwich is a large meal!

By 9:00pm we were all bushwacked, we had been awake for nigh on 41 hours and really needed some shut eye.

Sunday
The next day we were up at 6:00am and first to arrive at Ding Darling. We could have walked it in 10 mins, but decided to take the car – when in America do as the Americans.

What can I say, Spoonbills, Osprey, Herons, Egrets…. Well, that was it, bird photography paradise. The sun came up at 7:20am and we spent the next 4 hours crawling around the Ding Darling circuit. I used the MkIII / EF500 hand held and lept out of the Jeep at every opportunity. Incoming!….another Osprey flypass. The light was mixed sunshine, clouds and overcast at times. Keeping the shutter speed up helped while working between ISO400 and 1000.

We bumped into a few local wardens and twitchers, they were all intrigued with our gear, lenses, tripods and gimbals. They were friendly enough to provide us with lots of detail on other birding places – namely, Cape Coral for Burrowing Owls.

We headed back to Cabin at ~11:00, dumped the gear and made our way over to Sanibel Cow (about 1.5 miles away). A great diner, where you can tuck into well rounded “Atkins” diet brunch of Steak and Eggs for just $12.

Feeling a little bloated we went back to the Cabin and chilled out for a couple of hours. The old call of nature kicked in and the loo queue had started. Chris first followed by me! Not realising that the loo was blocked, I flushed and the pan overflowed. Bloody water everywhere…a shreek could be heard “Help…gents we have a problem!” Being a Water Engineer (or so the other guys thought). I pulled the cistern apart, isolated the water and then mopped up 20 gallons or so swimming across the Cabin floor with bath towels. I then tried to move the blockage, with one arm around the U bend and 3 blokes taking the piss!

Believe me, it was bloody funny – I was then crowned Water Engineer for the rest of the week. (the owners had it fixed properly the next day!)

That afternoon we went back over to Ding Darling and got our first Osprey eating catfish shot. We stood around for about an hour, getting bitten to bits by Mosquitos waiting for this Osprey (about 25ft away) to take off.

This American guy came up to us and got his Nikon 600 out and started to chat. He couldn’t format his card and Chris (being the resident Nikon user) suggested that he move the write protect tab on his SD card. Low and behold, as the guy was in deep one-sided conversation the damn Osprey flew off. Only Malc got it…I guess there’s a benefit in being partially deaf!

So we called it a day, went back to the rental only to find “Owen” (yep, we named him) a resident male Osprey chomping away at whale on top of the telegraph pole outside or cabin. 4Gb later we all buried our heads in the laptops reviewing the images from the day.

That evening, we decided to go to Doc Ford’s again and grab another early night.

Monday
Up again at 6:00am and over to Ding Darling again. This time the skies were clear, John H and I opted to use the 7D and we were subsequently blown away by how good it was in good light. Dawn broke at 7:20am and the lagoons were like mill ponds.

The quality of the light was stunning. Birds took on a golden glow as if we had pushed the saturation sliders. The trick is to get into Ding Darling early, since most of the resident birds start to fly off about an hour after dawn (8:30am). Knowing where the wind is blowing is useful, likewise the tide. If you want that mirror Spoonbill shot, then you need a high tide (well enough to cover the scrapes) and little wind. Most of our early morning shots were taken on the left lagoon as you drive in. It’s a vast expanse of shallow water with a backdrop of mangroves, with the sun behind you most of the time.

By 9:00am most of the day trippers arrive and then it starts to get busy. Lots of Americans wanting to chat! Hence, coining the acronym for the week as “LMTFA”. (To be spoken in full using a Forest Gump dialect).

I had one persistent New Yorker who took a fancy to my Feisol U-Mount and started the i’m a dealer – do me deal debate, he then tried to sell me his old Nikon 80-200 lens (eh, I shoot Canon). Funny, the other guys were out of sight!

Since we were creatures of habit, it was off to Sanibel Cow for another “he-man” brunch followed by a review of images taken that morning. We were quite lucky to find an unsecured WAN next door and so piggy-backed off it for the rest of the week. Surprisingly, there was only one location that we could get connected – a reclining wicker chair on the patio. Unfortunately, Malc and I didn’t have a big enough ground plane (belly) to use it effectively.

Over to Ding Darling again in the late afternoon, this time to get some sunset shots. The best place for this seems to be around the 2.5 mile marker. The sun sets across the lagoon with herds of Spoonbills, Herons, Egrets all coming in to rest for the night. A spectacular sight and great colours.

Tuesday
We planned a road trip today, with an early start (5:30am) and long drive to Laurel Road Dump and onto Venice Rookery. All good plans are laid to rest, they say!. We kicked off with another early session over Ding Darling, then grabbed our obligatory Steak and Eggs, before leaving for Laurel Road at 9:30am.

Laurel Road Dump we were told, is buzzing with Alligators, Vultures and Eagles. We set out on our journey of ~250 miles courtesy of Tom Tom, pulled up at Laurel Road only to be presented with a notice saying the main office was closed due to a national vacation. We were then directed to a large shed on site and I got out of the Jeep and asked this large bloke “I say, we have come to shoot the Crocodiles”…he wasn’t overly impressed with my Eton English accent and suggested that we keep to the perimeter road and have fun (well I think that’s what he said).

After about half an hour of semi offroading (yes, that’s why I wanted a jeep). We sat by a compound after seeing a American Kestrel and Malc suggested that Chris go and wake the Alligators up, so we could get some action shots…Chris gave him a rhetorical 4- letter reply!

We decided to give up, not a Eagle in sight, lots of soaring Vultures (100ft up) but nothing happening – so back in the car and off to Venice Rookery!

Venice Rookery is not what one would expect. A small pond about the size of a football pitch with an island in the middle. The island is where it all happens. Egret and Herons nest on the island and their mates fly back and forth with twigs and branches, wooing the females.
Light-wise, the left side is the best position for the afternoon / dusk transition. Your camera with 500mm lens attached and firmly plonked onto a gimbal with tripod is the way to go. Birds fly, to and fro, gathering and delivering twigs. Their trajectory is predictable enough to keep even the MkIII in focus. However, I used the 7D until the light faded and the ISO got above 1000.

Like Ding Darling, the birds congregate at dusk and fly off an hour after dawn, so I’m guessing the right side of the island is better for morning shots.
Come 5:00pm (late Jan), the light is too low to illuminate the island. Pity, since the island looks like a Christmas tree with 100s of birds roosting among the shrubs and trees.

During the afternoon, we met up with a Pro photographer and his wife, who had driven half way across the US to photograph at Venice and Ding Darling, no doubt we’ll see you later in the week then!

We left at 5:30pm, made our 3 hour drive back to Sanibel (John H at the wheel) before grabbing a night in and gorging ourselves on beer, soda and crisps.

Wednesday
Yet another 6:00am rise and over to Ding Darling again. Another 3 hours of great light (although I missed the Bald Ealge fly pass), followed by another Sanibel Cow breakfast. Back to the Cabin to review and then off to Cape Coral in the afternoon to photograph Burrowing Owls.

Cape Coral is home to some 10,000 Burrowing Owls and their burrows are literally scattered all over the place. The drive from Sanibel is ~30mins and we headed over to the School (as directed by the warden we met on Monday). The School we were told had a dense number of owls and after finding it, we felt a little uncomfortable pointing 500mm lenses on the perimeter of the School grounds – for fear of being arrested.

We decided to head over to the Library and found about half a dozen burrows, all staked out with sticks by locals to protect the Owl’s habitat from human traffic. The site itself is a small parcel of scrub land that lies at the front of the car park.

The light was superb, a golden sunset illuminating the burrows. We had about an hour before dusk and laid on the ground snapping away from a distance of 10-15ft. We weren’t alone, a few other photographers, who we had previously met at Ding Darling were also there, so we were in our comfort zone.

A short drive back to the Cabin on Sanibel stopping on route for a burger before getting our head down for another dawn at Ding Darling tomorrow.

Thursday
Dawn broke at Ding Darling and we were again blessed with a beautiful day. Our intentions were to go to the Everglades (at some point), but looking at the weather forecast, we decided to push it back since it was raining in the south.

However, would you believe my luck, about an hour in I put my back out, over reaching for my bag. Damn it, driving was out of the question and so was being a passenger. To be fair, the guys were brilliant, they were happy to stay local and I spent the rest of the morning hobbling around my tripod.

We did however, bump into the Pro Tog from Venice and the New Yorker again – arghhh!

Back to the Cabin and having taken a few horse tranqs that Chris had, I was starting to move again, although precariously.

That afternoon was spent catching the sunset again before eating at our local that evening.

Friday
We decided to go to Little Estero. A 45 min drive to a beach and lagoons in front of the Holiday Inn on the south-side of Fort Myers beach. Arriving at 7:30am, we were met with very heavy fog. Visibility was so bad we had to use our foot prints to trace our way back to the car park. After an impromptu game of tennis football (that lasted all of 10mins – old gits), we headed back for breakfast and decided to spend the day shopping, packing and lounging around.

Although the photography was on hold, John H and I did manages to get some 7D video footage of Owen on the telegraph post.

Saturday
Our last day and a quick jaunt over to Ding Darling before cleaning up the Cabin and heading off to Miami to catch the plane home….damn it’s all over!

So that’s the trip – All in all, it was bloody marvellous, a great base, awesome photography, great company and a repeat next year (a week or two later) for sure. Unfortunately, you can’t guarantee the weather, although 5 days out of 7 cant be bad.