I took some time to head down to the beach and watch the final sunset of 2009. There wasn’t a green flash, but cloud structure more than made up for it.

Goodbye 2009! It was a fun time!

The J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge is a curious place. Located on Sanibel Island, Florida, it fits in perfectly with the surrounding area. For those that have never been to Sanibel, one of the main things to do is rent or bring your own bicycle. With bike paths along most of the major parts of the island, it’s quite the friendly place for the recreational cyclist. Basically a nice easy way to tour the island, and the wildlife refuge is no different.

After driving into the refuge, there is a small booth on the side of the road where you pay for your access. It’s your normal affair. But what makes this place different is the fact that this is a one-way paved tour of the refuge. If you take a bicycle, there is a dirt trail at the end that will loop you around to the beginning. But if you are in a car, there is only one way to go, with stops along the way. And for the really lazy, you could just drive all the way through the preserve, see the majority of it, and never get out of your car.

So with that being said, this isn’t a very intimate experience. More of a comfortable way to spend the afternoon. Don’t get me wrong, there are ways to make it more adventuresome. Like walking almost the entire loop (a good four miles or so). But otherwise, you can sit back drive from stop to stop, get out if you want, or keep moving on to the next.

As you drive along, there are small bodies of water on either side of the road where birds will gather. Depending on the time of the year, you can see different kinds of birds as they migrate through the area. The reason we have come is to try to get some photos of the massive White Pelicans that nest here for only a couple months a year.

After we paid our entrance and drove into the refuge we quickly came to our first stop. Looking out the windows we could see a few herons and pelicans feeding on the bait in the shallow waters. None of the white pelicans were seen, but we got out anyways to see what kind of photos we could get.

It was amazing to watch this great blue heron chase down fish and use its wings to control the fish before it strikes.

Unsuccessful with the hunt, the great blue heron shakes off the excess water..

Here you can see the road and some of the cars as they tour through. Also, I didn’t know but I guess you can do a bit of crabbing in the refuge, if that’s what you are into.

I wasn’t really happy with standing along the side of the road taking my photos with everyone else. So I hopped down onto the sand to see if I couldn’t find anything better. This flock of sandpipers were heading right for me, but turned right as I took my shot. They were amazingly fast!

This was just the beginning area, so we hopped back into the car and drove to the next location.

As you drive along the route, from body of water to body of water, all that’s in between is dense mangroves. This whole driving thing makes it a lot more convenient to make it from shooting place to shooting place.

The next body of water is much much bigger. And since it was low tide, there were parts of exposed land where the birds were all resting. And by resting I mean sleeping.

The seagulls, being the naughty creatures they are, were awake and trying to steal food from anyone who seamed to be getting lucky with their fishing. This poor ibis finally got a hold of something and the seagull decided he would rather have it.

Another white ibis sits in the mangroves waiting.

And here is what we had come to see. The big white pelicans. Sadly, they were so far away you couldn’t tell how big they really where. But lined up to some brown pelicans you could get a little sense for their size difference.

About as zoomed in as I could get with my 200. The white pelicans were all sleeping and cleaning themselves. It was late morning, and we were told by some other photographers that the best time to get the pelicans was early morning or late afternoon when they are flying in and out. We were told they will fly right over top of you, and with a wing-span of up to nine feet, they provide for some nice in-flight action shots. At least I imagine so.

Well I could tell I was getting my fill of sleeping pelicans, so I switched out for my wide angle lens and tried to capture some of the beautiful weather we were having that day.

If you look in the center of the photo, on the land, you will see just how far out the white pelicans were.

Along the route, there are little bridges that connect the bodies of water from either sides of the road. And at this particular bridge there was a group of people clapping and cheering from time to time. They were all looking down in the water in front of the bridge. I became curious and decided to check out what all the commotion was all about.

They were all watching this little snowy egret fishing along the waters edge. The current was flowing through, and this little guy was sitting there picking off the minnows as they passed by.

This went on for quite a while, and I was surprised to see this bird swallow up so many fish.

Hidden on the other side of the water was a tri-colored heron trying the same approach as the snowy egret. However, he didn’t seem to be as successful.

Moving along, further up the route, you will come to a parking area for the Indigo Trail. Accessed by both bikes and hikers, this is the largest walking path on the refuge, measured at two miles.

By this point I was dieing to get out the car and explore around. You miss so many little things when you are in the car, so I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to get out and run around.

The beginning of the trail splits through some slow moving mangroves pools. These mosquito fish were barely moving in the afternoon heat.

I normally love signs like these. But this time, there didn’t seem to be any opportunities for photos behind the signs, so we respected their wishes and continued on.

Here you can get a better sense of what a majority of the Indigo Trail looks like. Its a sandy trail flanked by scrubby mangroves and the occasional gumbo limbo tree.

There are also a few cactus along side of the trail.

Providing for some interesting closeups.

Parts of the trail do open up towards the end, exposing some small pools of water. It was low tide and this mangrove seed was just starting to take route.

We nearly missed this anihinga perched on the mangrove limbs above the water. You couldn’t really see it easily from the trail, so we had to slowly sneak through some mangroves to try to get a better look.

I thought for sure the anihinga would have flown by now. But it was patient with us and watched us closely.

By now it had had enough of us and decided it was time to fly off. Instead it dove into the water and that was it.

At one point along the trail, a flock of snowy egrets flew over head. I think this shot captured about 1/5 of the total flock.

Well we had made the two mile hike through the Indigo Trail. There wasn’t much to see. And by this point I was really liking the idea of having a bicycle. I only say this because of all the people who were passing us on their bicycles as we walked along.

So the trail spits you out back at the front toll booth. We weren’t going to walk back down the trail, but rather walk the main car route and see if any new birds had flew in.

A double-crested cormorant dries its wings.

Turns out a flock of roseate spoonbills flew in while we were off walking the trail.

However, they were also rather far away and all I could really get were these group shots.

This lone roseate spoonbill was off feeding in the tide pool.

As we walked back to the car, the other bits of water hadn’t changed much. The pelicans were still sleeping. And there wasn’t much else that was new. However, I will say, the stretches of road where there is no water is extremely boring. Just solid mangroves. And what tortures you is the fact that the road is rather twisty. So as you get closer to the end, you think “One more turn! The car has to be right around that next turn.” But its not. And you have to walk more. People drive by and look at you like you’re some kind of photographer freak for walking instead of driving. Hah, or maybe that’s just my own personal opinion.

Well, we made it back to the car, and we were rather worn by this point.

What we passed on was the look-out tower. It’s further along the route, towards the end. And it basically overlooks more of the refuge. As we drove by it,we didn’t see any birds of interest. So instead of getting out the car and hiking up, we carried on.

Also, right before the end. There were some shorter trails. But again, by this point it was the middle of the afternoon, and we had a long trip home.

So that’s it for my J.N. “Ding” Darling experience.

Things I would have done differently if I were to do this again…Come earlier in the morning, like as soon as they open. Bring a doubler for my telephoto lens, what I had just wasn’t enough. Maybe bring my bicycle instead, and then do the whole thing a couple times from my bicycle. Just park the car, take out the bike, load up, and do the run. Oh and bring more fluids to keep hydrated!

If you’re interested in going, check them out on the web. http://www.fws.gov/dingdarling/ Look through their site and try to plan a time to visit when there will be birds nesting. Also look into making a weekend of staying in Sanibel, it’s a beautiful area.

Thanks for reading!

Nick

Some more back catalog of photos from when I first tried out the 70-200 my friend loaned to me for the weekend. These were taken right before sunset, and a little under exposed.

I’ve started to collect a little back log of sunset photos where I only really got one or two decent photos from the trip. Instead of bloging about them individually, I figured I would post them up in sets. Here is the first set of misc shots.

Click the link for more from this set.

The wave’s erosion have almost taken over this last piling.

A group of Royal Terns rest on the beach.

I love the focal point of this shot. Almost makes the boat in the background look like a toy.

And one of my all time favorite sunset shots.

I made way down to the Aqualane Shores beach access and walked down to the large set of pilings that usually have some sort of action.

There was nothing really happening in the sky or the shores, so I figured I would play with exposures and shutter speeds to see if I couldn’t get anything interesting.

Check the full post for the dramatic results!!!

A little too dark.

Trying that again from a low position.

Now lets slow the shutter down and wait for a larger wave to come in and capture it on the recession!

Another attempt, but at a funkier angle.

Looking back at the beach, there were some beautiful colors coming in.

With the experiments complete, it was time to just watch the end of another beautiful week.

Oh, by this time I was sitting up on top of the pilings. The trick to this is to pick one that isn’t full of seagull and pelican poop.

There was a rain storm that had just passed through. And the sun was set to go down in 20 minutes. I grabbed my gear and raced down to the Naples Pier to see if I could get anything out of it…

Probably one of the most dramatic shots of the Naples Pier I have taken.

The tide was about as low as it gets.

I didn’t get to see the sun drop, but I was given this beautiful after glow.

And a final parting shot before the lights went out.

Tonight’s sunset was going to be a bust, or so I thought. I was planning on heading to the beach to catch it, but looking at the severe weather alerts on my iphone was making me wonder how it was going to turn out.

As I walked onto the rain soaked beach, the people who had obviously been there all day looked at me rather stragely with all my camera gear. “What’s this douche going to take pictures of? It’s complete shit out.”  Or so I was thinking they were thinking about me.

To be honest, I was thinking the same thing. The sky was almost all gray and there wasn’t really anything going on.

I saw a group of people freak out at the sight of a pod of manatee swimming along the coast. They though for sure it was a shark. I didn’t say anything and just kept walking on.

This composition is obviously forced. But wanted to take it anyways.

The sea snails were not liking the rain and made their way up to the tops of the pilings.

Go snail!

As the sun started to set, I thought I would take a go at trying to catch some of the lighting.

Along with the cover shot, I only captured three instances of lighting. And this was out of 150 photos I took trying to catch it in a 20 minute period.

There was some nice cloud formations worth noting as well.

You can see Naples Pier in the lower corner.

That’s about it.The cover shot was really the best one of the bunch. Next time I try this, I’m going to bring a tripod and a remote. Holding that camera up to my eye and waiting for lightning to strike was a real pain!

One of the more beautiful sunsets I’ve been able to capture with my new gear. I spent a little more time worrying about composition and location than trying to chase birds. Check the full post for more sunset shots!

Facing North, toward the Naples, Pier.

The small shore break was no match for this Willet.

This Sanderling Sandpiper was a little farm from its flock.  They can be typically seen chasing the receding waves piping for food.

A White Egret rests out on a wooden pylon.

The sun began to set, so I scrambled atop some pylons. You can see some Pelicans floating around in the water.

Zoomed in a little more.

A single Pelican swims in the distance as the sun gets ready to set behind the clouds.

With the sun finally set, it was time to head back to the car.

This sunset had something special to offer. For some reason, there were a lot of pelicans feeding at the beach. I took my 200mm lens and was practicing with the high-speed drive mode on my Canon. Keep reading for some wonderful stop motion shots of pelicans.

Alot of people ask me if this is the same bird photoshoped into a set. It’s actually three different pelicans feeding in a group.

It’s like they are swimming underwater…

I did switch up my lens back to the wide angle for the final sunset shot.

Another beautiful sunset in Naples, Florida. Birds were out feeding once again. And I was able to capture a few decent shots. Read the full post for more!

Looking North towards the Naples Pier.

I can’t tell if this is a Western Sandpiper or a White-rumped Sandpiper. The Western Sandpiper is one of the most abundant shorebirds in North America, so I’m going to go with that.

A Ruddy Turnstone sits on a pylon.

You can tell its a Rudy Turnstone by its orange legs and short black bill. They get the name “Turnstone” because they scower the beach turning over small stones and shells looking for food.

I believe these Ruddy Turnstones are in their breeding plumage? Or close to it. I have seen on in their breeding plumage and its quite vibrant.

The same group of birds from my cover shot. These Willets were hard to get into a decent composition. They love to turn their backs on you.

A Royal Tern sits on a concrete pylon.

Pelican heads south as the sun sets.

I stalked this White Egret for quite some time trying to get a shot of it feeding. It would turn away from me and walk up the beach every time.

A more majestic pose, looking for fish.

Not the best sunset, but still beautiful.