Rainmaker

Ernesto turned out to be a dud, and nothing more then a large tropical rainstorm. It is not expected to produce much of anything except rain, which is a good thing. After it made land fall on Plantation Key, it just fizzled out and brought in a thick cloud cover over the bay area.

Pretty amazing since just a few days ago, it was forecasted to be a Category 3 and was headed right up into Tampa Bay. So much for that.

Watching For Signs

With Hurricane Ernesto getting closer, as it is now left Cuba and is headed for Florida, we turned our attention to the birds today. Sometimes the best way to see the approaching danger is to watch the actions of the birds, for the can give early warning signs through their behavior.

We didn't have to go far to see some species that we hardly ever see, much less had the chance to photograph. Just up the street from us in the outlying area of the Brooker Creek Watershed is numerous lakes and ponds that was teeming with activity. We spotted Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, Black Vultures, White Ibis', White Herons, Osprey and to our surprise, a Wood Stork and three Sandhill Cranes.

We spent several hours around the ponds and lakes, and we really didn't observe any behavior that would indicate that a storm was approaching, such as fighting, excessive calling, overfeeding or a look of nervousness. But the best was being able to observe and photograph the Wood Stork and Sandhill Cranes, for once they got comfortable and saw I was no threat, they literally came with a couple of feet of me that I could of almost touched them and their baby.

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Hurry Up And Wait

What a difference twenty-four hours make. Yesterday, it looked as if Hurricane Ernesto (right now listed as a Tropical Storm) was going to come straight up into Tampa Bay.

The latest advisory has changed with Ernesto going right over Marathon in the Florida Keys and straight through southern Florida then through Florida Everglades.

Although we are not out of the woods just yet, the next 24-36 hours should be interesting...

In The Path Of Ernesto

There are more significant changes to the forecast track of Ernesto this morning. Computer model guidance has been steadily shifting eastward overnight, and the National Hurricane Center has decided to correspondingly shift the forecast track to an even more threatening path as far as Florida is concerned.

The 5 AM forecast brings Ernesto's eye to within 90 miles of Key West on Tuesday night and then into the Tampa Bay / Nature Coast region at Category 3 strength on Thursday afternoon.

All visitors and non-residents in the Florida Keys are now being told to evacuate, as well as at-risk residents. This is not looking good...

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View The 5-day Landfall Advisory

Day Of Discovery

With the threat of rain, we decided to head indoors to Brooker Creek Preserve to attend a "Florida Birds of Prey" exhibition to see up close some of the birds that call Florida home. We were excited to have the opportunity to see these beautiful animals up close and learn more about them, as we have seen them in the wild just about everywhere we have gone around the Tampa Bay area.

It was a full house at the auditorium, and the seminar was put on by the Lowry Park Zoo. We got to see and learn about Red Shouldered Hawks, Barred Owls, Barn Owls, Mississippi Kites, Black Vultures, and one species that is not native to Florida which is the largest and one of the most beautiful Owls we have ever seen, the Eurasian Eagle Owl.

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Watch A Video Of Birds Of Prey   (QuickTime Format - 4:00 - 23MB)
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After the exhibition, we stuck around to talk to the handler from the zoo, and he even took the Barred Owl back out for us so we could really get a close look at her. She was so gentle and adorable, and seemed to like all the attention we were giving her.

Before we left the preserve, we came across numerous other creatures that we have never seen before, and was floored by just how many creatures were all around us, we just had to sop and take a look around. We spotted a Water Moccasin, also known as a Florida Cottonmouth, numerous immature Southeastern Five-lined Skinks, Rat Snakes, Anoles, Southern Toads, Treefrogs, Blue and Green Dragonflies, Yellow Swallowtails, and the largest spider we have ever seen, a Banana Spider.

After spending some time looking around, we headed back home, but when I stopped for gas, directly behind the gas station there is a large freshwater pond, and a female White-tailed Deer and two of her fawns were grazing along the waters edge. Just goes to show that taking the time to look around, one can be amazed what they could find.

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The Life Of Birds

For the past couple of weeks we have been watching the film documentary, "The Life of Birds". It is a three-disc DVD collection of over twelve hours of programming narrated by Sir David Attenborough and was enjoyable to watch. During one segment, we watched some of the most unbelievable behavior we have ever seen, the sounds of the Lyrebird.

The Lyrebird are magnificent mimickers of other birds and noises. Often in the morning you may think you are surrounded by a multitude of bird species, to find out you have been fooled by a Lyrebird. Car alarms, chainsaws, cameras and other noises are no problem for this excellent imitator. The mimicry, though used in the mating courtship is heard all year round. It is said to be the way the male Lyrebird tells others this is his territory, much like the Kookaburras "laugh".

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Watch a clip from the DVD: The Lyrebird   (QuickTime Format - 3:35 - 8MB)

Dancin' Machine

Even though there was a threat of thunderstorms in the afternoon, we made our way to our favorite beach, Honeymoon Island. I decided to take my camera at the last minute, which was a good move. When we got there, it was not only low tide, but we spotted an immature Reddish Egret dancing just behind the surf line for his evening dinner.

When the Reddish Egret hunts for food, it races back and forth in the shallow water, often spreading its wings wide and flapping them. It eats fish, frogs and crustaceans. Sometimes it will curve its wings forward around its body to make a canopy that casts shade on the water. When prey swims towards the shady spot, it quickly snatches them up.

Later in the evening, a flying machine that looked like it was crafted by the Wright Brothers themselves buzzed by overhead. I also tried out my new gold reflector on some sea shells out on the exposed sand bar offshore, and the gold reflections made for some very interesting macro shots. We ended the evening just floating around in the warm gentle waves and enjoyed yet another beautiful sunset over the Gulf of Mexico.

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Fresh Seafood

Today we got our afternoon thunderstorms early, which was perfect since we wanted to do some snorkeling in the evening at our favorite place to snorkel, Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs. It's now late in the season for tourists, and the beaches are less crowded then they have been the past few months.

We timed our arrival just at the peak of low tide, and put our gear on and took to the water. We started in the cuts, but the few people that were in the water all seemed to be in them, so we headed to the south side of the island where nobody was swimming or playing. We quickly realized we made the right decision to explore this side of the island, for we found even more fish then we have seen to date, including numerous Atlantic Stingrays, Scallops, hundreds of Blue Grunts, Gray Snappers, Red Drums, Sheepshead, Blue Crabs and several others we have never seen before.

We were both very excited with the time we spent exploring and snorkeling in this new area we discovered, and we both agreed that this island has the best snorkeling in the Tampa Bay area for sure.

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Figure Skating

Last week I tagged along with Dawn to watch and photograph her practice figure skating at Tampa Bay Skating Academy in Oldsmar. She has been training for the past year here in Tampa and was training since the fall of 2002 back in Cleveland to begin taking her tests to become certified and hopefully began teaching figure skating.

Skating is not easy. Years ago Dawn began to teach me how to skate, and it was one of the most difficult things I had ever attempted to do. But she stuck with me, and after about a year, I was good enough to start to play pick-up hockey on weekends. We both played hockey for several years together, and that was a blast.

She took her first series of tests with Bill Coyle who has 27 years coaching experience in high level figures and freestyle, and her personal coach Shannah Campbell. Dawn has also skated with Jim Millns, a 1976 Olympic Bronze Medalist with multiple U.S. Titles and World Medals, and was inducted into Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1993. She got a perfect score on both tests, which is a huge achievement in the sport.

Summer Nights

A couple of times a year, Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa opens it's doors after hours for "Summer Nights". The brochure claimed to come and see the animals in cooler temperatures, but being in the mid-nineties, it really wasn't all that more comfortable to say the least.

We met up with our friends John, Tara and Linda to stroll through the zoo to capture some of the animals we came across, and even though the lighting for most of the exhibits was not ideal, we still found plenty of subjects to photograph. It was a great way to take in a lazy summer evening and have lots of fun to boot.

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Terror Alert

Without a doubt the talk of the day and most likely days to come is the attempted terror plot out of Great Britain. Travel out of the country was snarled, and all across the U.S. at every airport, including Tampa International Airport.

Tourism will undoubtedly take a hit here in Clearwater Beach, as well as the numerous beach communities from Clearwater down to St. Petersburg Beach will feel it's effects. We were surprised at just how many tourists come from Great Britain and the United Kingdom when we moved here, as there are even entire resorts and accommodations that cater to the European traveler.

It's gonna take some time to see where this goes, but we have had a sharp rise in tourists this season with the absence of hurricanes and Red Tide, combine that with some gorgeous weather this summer, so this event may have a deep impact in the months to come.

On Location Workshop: The Marina

We met up with Pam, a mother of two children from Apollo Beach for another on location workshop. Pam was a former student of mine at the Perfect Picture School of Photography, and she currently is studying children and portrait photography. Pam however wanted to not only learn some in-depth tips and techniques on portrait photography, but how to see the world around her from a creative perspective.

For her personal workshop, we met at Clearwater Beach at Pier 60, but ended up spending our entire workshop at the Clearwater Marina, for it has a large variety of interesting subjects. We covered several topics, from ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, Depth of Field, Rule of Thirds, Composition, Backgrounds, Perspective, Applied Motion, Macro Photography, Line, Pattern, Storytelling, Portraits, Focus Selection, Lighting, Picture In Picture, and general photography techniques.

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Learn More About Our On Location Workshop In Tampa Bay
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The Clearwater Marina was a gold mine for interesting subjects, and Pam found that a whole new world is available to her now, and by the end of our workshop she was seeing photo opportunities in a new light.

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On Location Workshop: Sponge Docks

We met up with Uday, a young man in the eleventh grade in Tarpon Springs that just bought his first Nikon Digital SLR D70, and we met at the Sponge Docks for a photography workshop. He was excited to learn more about how to use his new digital camera, for he has a big trip coming up in a few days for two weeks in Africa.

For his personal workshop, we covered several topics, from ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, Depth of Field, Rule of Thirds, Composition, Backgrounds, Perspective, Applied Motion, Panning, Zooming, Night Photography and basic camera care. While our subject matter was not all that exciting since he was just starting out, I was able to show him in just in a few hours tips and techniques that would take others several months and sometimes years to learn and master.

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Learn More About Our On Location Workshop In Tampa Bay
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Uday was a quick learner, and his skill level was outstanding by the end of our workshop. As a bonus, we were presented with a beautiful rainbow just at twilight that was a great ending to a very successful workshop.

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Section 39

Being in Tampa Bay has it's advantages (and a lot of them), but one of the things I miss is my summer pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx to take in a few games in the right field bleachers. I had my first encounter sitting in Section 39 several years ago, and went back many years after that just to experience the funniest and craziest baseball games, ever.

I found a few videos of the craziest "skits" that are heard at every game, including the famous "Role Call" and the "Gang Bang Song". It is without a doubt the best ten bucks I have ever spent on a baseball game, just the entertainment value alone was worth the price of admission.

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Check out the links below of some of the videos that was recorded in Section 39:

Bleacher Creatures Role Call

Bleacher Creatures Gang Bang Song

Bleacher Creatures Box Seats Suck