I found this little guy sitting on a tree on the way out

I got to make another trip to Robinson Preserve a couple of days ago, this time with a friend specifically to go photographing.  I only shot with my 70-200 f/4 this time, and it turned out surprisingly well, for the short focal length.  Hopefully next time, though, I’ll have access to a 400 f/5.6 again, which will give me an awfully better view of the wildlife.  In the meantime, I made do well enough at 200mm, just had to be a little bit sneaky with the assorted creatures (birds, mostly).  And, of course, there was a little bit of cropping involved in post processing, but I guess that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

A bee taking off from a flower

The trip was good fun, and I managed to make an entire circuit around one side of the park (the one that stretches out to Tampa Bay).  Perhaps next time we can go the other way, down to the causeway to Anna Maria.  Towards the entrance of the park, there isn’t a whole lot in the way of tree cover, so we mostly stuck to photographing the insects that flew around the various flowers and grasses.  Moving on a little further, we came to the watery part of the park, where we managed to catch some birds hanging around the water, and even a couple of them in flight, skimming over the water or soaring up in the skies (the former proved easier to photograph).  Then we trekked on through the mangroves and marshey areas, and found a nice little flock of ibis pecking their way around in the water.

A white heron, flying just above the water

The park itself is still looking just as pleasant as always, and they seem to be making process on the visitor center (which they’re putting in an old, dilapidated house) and the camp site.  I also noticed that they’ve added dispensers with doggy bags, which I’m pretty sure was my mother’s doing.  Apparently she took the dogs for a walk there one day, and they did their business, whereupon my mom realized she was out of bags.  By amazing coincidence, she ran into a woman who took issue with the situation, and despite my mom having gone to her car to fetch a bag with which to clean up the mess, managed to get a park ranger to issue her a ticket for failing to pick up after the dogs.  So, in any case, she complained about it, and got them to put in dog bag dispensers.

A great blue heron, framed up by mangroves

And, with the exception of the dog bag drama, I don’t believe anything else of any great consequence has really been going on.  Robinson preserve continues to be awesome, just like always, and with any luck I’ll get a good chance to thoroughly explore the other part of the park sometime later in the Summer.  The other way isn’t circuitous, but rather lets out onto the causeway to the island, so I’m thinking some sort of a switchup with vehicles might be ideal.  That is, park one car at the park entrance, put two people in another, drive it down to the causeway entrance, walk all the way through to the main entrance, and then drive back to the other car.  Or something like that.  I’ll leave that planning to another day, and for now settle with the images I have.

A kangaroo, happily munching away at some fruits and leafy greens

I was back in Bradenton for the weekend today, and ended up going out to Majical Miniatures animal sanctuary with my dad, sister, and girlfriend.  My dad’s been running a pet shop lately, and some way or other ended up meeting the woman who runs it, who offered to take in our prairie dog, who’s getting rather old, and hasn’t been handling pet-shop life particularly well (she was sort of a display animal, just there to hang out and play with the customers).  So Annie the prairie dog went away to their shelter, and today we went out to see her, and the rest of the animals.  The interesting thing is, the shelter is next door to the house and land where my family used to live out in Parish: driving back onto the property, we actually saw the old chicken coop that we built oh-so-many years ago.  Dad had told us that they had kangaroos and wallabies, and sure enough, just as soon as we walked through the door there was a kangaroo eating his lunch (or was it supper?)  I just had to bring the camera along, and got some nifty shots, albeit with only a single on-camera strobe to work with.

My sister Steffi petting a rescued deer

On the way in, there was a parrot who loudly accosted—and, of course, amused—us with alternating shrieks and eerily well-pronounced phrases.  On the inside we found the aforementioned deer, along with assorted dogs, a caged raccoon, a very large guinea pig and rabbit, and our old prairie dog, now housed in a nice luxurious cage.  We went out onto the porch and met a rescued deer, who apparently had her lower jaw disfigured when she was young.  She can’t eat like normal deer, but they feed her pellets and whatnot like the rest of the animals, and she’s grown up to be a big, healthy, and insanely friendly animal (no, my sister isn’t screaming in terror in that photograph).  There were also some assorted birds and cats, and I believe a dog out on the porch, as well as a baby kangaroo that was awfully shy.

My girlfriend Danielle, petting the deer

After that, we went on out to part of the yard around the house, where we saw a whole bunch of assorted critters.  There were three really large (and by really large, I mean a couple of feet long from head to tail) tortoises, which I believe were Sulcattas, milling around.  The biggest one went after a smaller one (which was apparently a newcomer), in what was quite possible the most amusing display of animal agression I’v ever seen.  Both tortoises were, as tortoises tend to be, encased in armored shells, pretty much preventing any potential for damage to either tortoise.  This didn’t discourage the larger tortoise, however, which made a great show of yelling (or the tortoise equivalent thereof) and shoving the other tortoise along like a hockey puck.

An albino wallaby, munching away on some foliage

There were also some intriguing looking llamas and alpacas hanging out beyond a fence, but we never got to see them.  There were a bunch of chickens milling about, which reminded me of when we used to live out there and kept some: chickens are absolutely joyous birds to have around as pets.  I also saw a white turkey, which is a sad bird.  They have a story on their website about one, Tom the Turkey, who died about a year ago, and I’m guessing this one will be a similar story.  The white turkey, apparently, is completely a contrivance of humans.  They’re bred solely for use as meat, to the point where the things grow so freakishly large that they can’t even naturally reproduce: the birds’ muscles prevent them from physically mating.  So what we have is an entire species created and maintained solely through artificial insemination, which can’t breed, and when not butchered shortly after birth can’t survive long at all on its own.  Even if freed from the factory farms, the turkeys suffer all kinds of nasty problems due to their freakish size.  For instance, bone fractures are common simply from normal activity, as their skeletons can’t cope with the massive weight they put on.  In any case, it’s good to see one living as comfortably as possible, but sadly enough, there isn’t much comfort for them to find.

A wallaby, hanging out in the yard

After that, we went on to the other part of the yard, where the wallabies live with some cats, chickens, goats, baby pigs and deer.  The wallabies don’t seem to be domesticated like the others, and they roam around on the fringes of the yard on their own, generally staying away from visitors, it seems.  Quite possibly the most amusing thing I saw, or at least up there on the list, was a baby pig wandering up to a pseudo-sleeping cat and trying to bore into the cat’s belly with its nose.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cat spring up more quickly.

The deer trying to untie Danielle's shirt

Then it was time to go, after one more fun encounter with the deer, which just loved to sneak up on and nibble us.  It even took a shot at untying Danielle’s shirt, which didn’t accomplish much, other than getting a pretty great deal of deer saliva on the shirt in question.  Altogether, it was an amazing trip, and it was absolutely wonderful to see what had become of our old neighbors’ property.  Short of a zoo, I don’t think I’ve ever seen more animals living together, and these all managed to cohabit without killing each other: something I’m not sure even humans could accomplish in such a large number.  The trip was enjoyable, and I look forward to perhaps returning some day.

As soon as we got in, we found this guy, my new friend the bald eagle, way up on top of a tree. He was way up there: even with the 400mm lens, that image is cropped in significantly. This meant not only that he ended up small in the frame, but that the angle was less than advantageous. It was really one of those situations where a 600 f/4 and teleconverters would come in handy, but I guess it worked out well enough: certainly better than it would have with my 70-200 f/4. I snapped away with him sitting up and moving his head around for a couple minutes, and then he got up and flew away.

We went on through the park, and ran into some assorted small birds, and also some bigger ones, namely the great blue heron and sand hill cranes. I got some decent shots of those, but they’re not terribly exotic, so I decided not to bother processing any for now. There is one of a smallish bird that I wasn’t able to identify below. Once again, it would have been nice to have a 600 f/4, as that one’s cropped significantly, but once again, it still worked out pretty well. Especially considering how light the 400/5.6 is. It’s sort of sad, I’ve been doing pretty much everything with my own lights lately, and I’d all but forgotten how to make the most of the camera’s built-in meter and on-camera flash. I’m happy to say, though, that I’m getting used to it again, and with some good tripod technique, I’ve been getting some results almost as good as what I get with totally controlled lighting and still subjects (did I mention that I cropped all the bird shots in this post?)

So we left there, with plans to go back tomorrow morning. After that, we picked up some big prints of our hosts’ new granddaughter that I made from Costco, got a frame, and surprised them with it when we got home. They seemed mighty pleased, and I even got a “You’re making me cry,” with a big smile, of course. Then I went for a run, came back, did some shadow boxing, dinnered, and set up a still life of my new old camera, with the nice old-looking hardwood floor in the room I’m staying in (that’s the photograph below). After that, I just watched some TV, put some batteries on the charger, and settled in to write a blog post. I guess that’s the end for now, hopefully there’ll be some great new bird photos tomorrow.