Red Shoulders

This morning at work I was able to get really close to two juvenile Red Shouldered Hawks. We seem to have a large number of these hawks on the refuge. Here are two of the many photos I snapped.

You're doing it wrong!

A fawn tries to hide in the black, the camoflage doesn't work that well after a fire.

Birding trip

My mother is down Florida on a 10 day birding adventure trip. I managed to spend the other day with them while they were in the area. I can say I can't handle doing the birding thing, but I appreciated the birds I learned while I was out in the field with the group. I only have good pictures of the larger and slower birds, those little buggers are too small and move too fast to really get any good images of them.

White Pelicans - Sanibel Island


Red Shouldered Hawk


Mom hiking the boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp


Bromeliad Bloom


Bromeliad Bloom


Checking out the Yellow Bellied Sapsucker (I don't make these names up).

A hapless visitor

This young coyote pup got more than he bargained for when he strolled through the refuge visitors' center this evening. A doe decided that the coyote was too close to her fawn so she chased it across the lawn and into one of the flower gardens, here are the photos.

Next time I will get a better photo...

Crazy rains, bring frogs

So far today we have had almost three inches of rain. This makes it noisy as hell outside, every damn frog is looking for a mate today. I managed to capture one of the culprits in the act.

Work week update June 19th

I thought I would share some of the week's events. We are finally getting some rain so we may soon be able to start doing some prescribed burns on the refuge. Hopefully we get to some of the areas that need to burn before it gets too wet. We have been getting many afternoon thunderstorms, and with the storms we get lightning. We have been spending most mornings traveling the refuge looking for new fires that may have been started by the lightning. So far we have been lucky and no new wildfires have come of the lightning.

On another front it's only a little over a week until I head out to Seattle and the surround Pacific Northwest for the Seattle International Beer Fest I am really looking forward to the trip, and I will be taking lot's of photos and drinking many fine beers. Until then enjoy a few photos from the work week;

Butterfly orchids are in bloom


I am out looking for lightning strikes


We had a Sikorsky visit the helibase this week.


A barred owl out on the refuge