About

Background

I have had an interest in photography since I was a teenager.  When I landed my first full time job after college I purchased a Cannon.  It was a manual camera that made you set your f-stop and shutter speed for each shot.  Because of this I learned a lot about how to use of each of them.  At the time I worked with black and white photos and developed and enlarged them in my home made darkroom.

I took pictures over the years, but it wasn’t until I came to Florida and retired that I took up photography as a hobby that I really enjoy. The sunny days and the colorful birds made me want to take more pictures again.  I purchased a Sony camera and used it for a few years until it completely died one day out at the boardwalk by Lettuce Lake.  Then I bought a Nikon D-750 and have been happy with it to this day.

When the White Pelicans came to town for a few weeks every year, they were a favorite of mine.  The Egrets, Herons and Spoonbills were also prevalent around the neighborhood and I took their pictures.  But mostly I just collected them on my computer. 

When we moved to Esplanade back in 2014 I met Dean Vanzegeren who was an accomplished bird photographer.  I learned from Dean how to take the bird photographs without scaring them away, as well as how to edit and organize the photos.  Since then Dean and I have been going to the parks, preserves, and beaches along the Southwest coast of Florida taking pictures of the birds and scenery.

Navigation

All of the bird pictures on the initial Bird page when clicked on will show more pages of the same type of bird with the exception of the last bird on the Birds page.  This one contains the birds for which I only had 1 or a small number of photos of.  

Any of the pictures that are in a gallery, when clicked on, are then available in a full screen slide show.  This excludes the full screen birds and the ones in 2 column rows.  This same navigation exists for the Wildlife and Landscape pages.

Bird Venues

Many of the bird shots were taken at the Celery Fields in Sarasota.  The Celery Fields have a large quantity and variety of birds as well as boardwalks and a gazebo next to bird feeders.  The beaches at Anna Maria, Lido, and Fort DeSoto are predominant locations where the pictures of the shore birds were taken.  Some of the other locations that have provided good bird photos are:

  • The Venice Rookery
  • Red Bug Slough
  • Lettuce Lake
  • Felts Preserve
  • Circle B Bar Reserve
  • Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Ken Wood (kcjuly@yahoo.com)