DeSoto is on fire right now. Wednesday morning was fantastic. With clear skies and a strong wind from the east (wind against sun), I opted to stay in on Wednesday afternoon. Two cooperative, un-banded!, Hurricane Idalia-driven flamingoes showed up on Thursday morning and were photographed by about 25 photographers, almost all of them shooting 90 degrees or more off sun angle. In addition, I was surrounded by some of the several thousand shorebirds and some of the several thousand migrant and wintering terns. Thursday morning was mega. I was planning on staying in again on Thursday afternoon, but when I checked the Windy App, I saw that the wind had switched to the north by west. I drove down to the park, grabbed the 200-600, and headed north. That session turned out to be the very best of my three-day busman’s holiday. I kept 59 out of more than 2,000 flight shots. My best images, however, were of a juvenile Caspian Tern and a winter male American Avocet. When I started back to my car at 7:20pm, I was exhilarated. <\/p>\n
Friday morning was decent; my best images were some tern blastoffs and the flamingo silhouettes — there were three un-banded that morning. As it is already five weeks after the hurricane, there is a good chance that some flamingos will hang around for the fall DeSoto IPTs. Note that American Flamingo is a Code 4 rarity on the American Birding Association list. I doubt that the several dozen flamingos in Florida will hang around to breed as I am not aware of any suitable breeding habitat — shallow salt or brackish water flats or alkaline lakes. That said, they did breed in Florida historically before being extirpated by hunting for the plume trade. <\/p>\n
FYI: ABA Rare Bird Codes<\/p>\n
Code 3: Rare. Species that occur in very low numbers, but annually, in the ABA Checklist Area. This includes visitors and rare breeding residents.<\/p>\n
Code 4: Casual. Species not recorded annually in the ABA Checklist Area, but with six or more total records-including three or more in the past 30 years-reflecting some pattern of occurrence.<\/p>\n
Code 5: Accidental. Species that are recorded five or fewer times in the ABA Checklist Area, or fewer than three records in the past 30 years.<\/p>\n
\n| \n | This image was created on 12 May 2023 at Fort DeSoto Park, South of St. Petersburg, FL. I used the handheld Sony FE 400mm f\/2.8 GM OSS lens<\/a> with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter<\/a>, and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera<\/a>). The exposure was determined via Zebra technology with ISO on the Thumb Dial. ISO 1000: 1\/1000 sec. at f\/5.6 (stopped down one stop) in Manual mode. When evaluated in RawDigger,<\/a> the raw file exposure was determined to be dead-solid perfect. AWB at 9:09:17am on a partly cloudy morning. <\/p>\n Tracking: Zone\/AF-C with Bird Face\/Eye detection enabled performed to perfection. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy a high-res version. <\/p>\n |