Bird Photography at Fort Desoto is bigger than ever!

Bird photography at Fort Desoto is bigger and better than ever! There is now a full sand bar that emerged from the water, West of the cove a bit further up from the North parking lot. I could not believe my eyes during my last visit this September. While there were some tracks of the long lasting red tide from this Summer, especially in the cove where many dead fish could be seen, there was a big congregation of birds of all sorts.

It was such a delight to work on white plumage birds against the pre-sunrise pink-grey background. This Snowy Egret was successfully fishing in the shade. When properly exposing a subject during an overcast day, or under the shade, you may create beautiful high key photographs such as above. Beware of the lurking blue cast though! When shooting in the shade, more often than not, you will need to de-saturate the blues in order to eliminate the blue cast. Note that you may also work with very high ISO levels and noise will barely be visible on the very light colors.

The pink reflection on the water from the photograph above is the result on the pre sunrise colors. It does pay to wake up early… There were tons of fish running around and the birds were very successful in their hunting. For proof, see the two Snowy Egrets above with a fish in their beak, almost facing each other.

During the second half of the morning, a few Sandwich Terns were repeatedly bomb diving around the same spot. What an opportunity!! Every so often, they would throw the fish in the air and catch it again. This lead to occasional aerial confrontations as above. A good technique to capture birds bomb diving is to work vertical and position the autofocus point further up in the frame. Since we tend to be slower than our flying subject, placing the autofocus point further up allows for a higher chance to create photographs with enough space in front of the moving direction of the bird.

Florida Spoonbills Photography Tour – $1,290

February 2nd-3rd 2019 / limit 6 people – Full

April 27th-28th 2019 / limit 6 people – Full

3 boat rides to the absolute best rookery to photograph spoonbills with breeding colors. $250 deposit. While the dates above are full, do not hesitate to reach out to me to be added to the contact list in case of cancellation or additional date addition. Send me an email at steven@stevenbirdphotography.com