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My Red-bellied Woodpeckers are raising a second brood!

These two photos show the father bringing arthropod snacks to his chicks. Matt took the two images just a few minutes apart. Look how much the light changed! They were both around sunrise. The first was while the sun was still behind a distant tree line, and the second was after the sun had risen just above the trees, which resulted in more directional light. The background was still shaded in the second shot, and became a much darker green when exposing for the bird. Gainesville FL

My Red-bellied Woodpeckers are raising a second brood!

These two photos show the father bringing arthropod snacks to his chicks. Matt took the two images just a few minutes apart. Look how much the light changed! They were both around sunrise. The first was while the sun was still behind a distant tree line, and the second was after the sun had risen just above the trees, which resulted in more directional light. The background was still shaded in the second shot, and became a much darker green when exposing for the bird.

An adolescent Clapper Rail forages in the receding tidal waters of a coastal salt marsh along Florida's Big Bend.
I also included a little behind the scenes so you can see what it takes to get a photo like this. Matt will position himself hours before the tide begins to recede and wait until the rails come out to forage.

53mm | f/4 | 1/1600 sec | ISO 1000

A little bit about our process. We have an extensive rallidae portfolio which you can see here

https://flickr.com/photos/7553931@N02/sets/72177720301461138

These short lens encounters are an attempt to tell parts of the story you might not otherwise be able to see such as sunbathing, swimming, or feeding behaviors. Matt sits still and doesn’t move at all and allows the birds to behave normally around him. No playback, no moving at all. Just patience and seeing what the birds do naturally. This has always been his process and you can see unique behaviors featured in his photos because of his approach. No playback is ever used and he does not approach birds. They sometimes do approach him but he doesn’t call them in any way. It’s a process of patience and we often go home empty handed.

An adolescent Clapper Rail forages in the receding tidal waters of a coastal salt marsh along Florida's Big Bend.
I also included a little behind the scenes so you can see what it takes to get a photo like this. Matt will position himself hours before the tide begins to recede and wait until the rails come out to forage.

53mm | f/4 | 1/1600 sec | ISO 1000

I want to be clear that all the folks saying a long lens would work are not wrong. We have an extensive rallidae portfolio which you can see here

https://flickr.com/photos/7553931@N02/sets/72177720301461138

These short lens encounters are an attempt to tell parts of the story you might not otherwise be able to see such as sunbathing, swimming, or feeding behaviors. Matt sits still and doesn’t move at all and allows the birds to behave normally around him. No playback, no moving at all. Just patience and seeing what the birds do naturally. This has always been his process and you can see unique behaviors featured in his photos because of his approach. No playback is ever used and he does not approach birds. They sometimes do approach him but he doesn’t call them in any way. It’s a process of patience and we often go home empty handed.

An adolescent Clapper Rail forages in the receding tidal waters of a coastal salt marsh along Florida's Big Bend.
I also included a little behind the scenes so you can see what it takes to get a photo like this. Matt will position himself hours before the tide begins to recede and wait until the rails come out to forage.

53mm | f/4 | 1/1600 sec | ISO 1000

A little bit about our process… We have an extensive rallidae portfolio which you can see here

https://flickr.com/photos/7553931@N02/sets/72177720301461138

These short lens encounters are an attempt to tell parts of the story you might not otherwise be able to see such as sunbathing, swimming, or feeding behaviors. Matt sits still and doesn’t move at all and allows the birds to behave normally around him. No playback, no moving at all. Just patience and seeing what the birds do naturally. This has always been his process and you can see unique behaviors featured in his photos because of his approach. No playback is ever used and he does not approach birds. They sometimes do approach him but he doesn’t call them in any way. It’s a process of patience and we often go home empty handed.

This male Northern Bobwhite snuck up on Matt one morning this spring while photographing a Bachman's Sparrow. As a game bird, he has found these quail to be very skittish, at least here in Florida, so his opportunities to get photos of them are few and far between.

Taken while kayaking the rainbow river

This is another photo from Matt’s most recent blog post where you can read all about this owl and her little family. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, you can do so via the link in the comments.

Shooting note: Matt tried to get a wide variety of images while following their progress. Most importantly, to him, was showing the beautiful location of the nest, without getting too close with a wide-angle lens (and risk causing a disturbance).
He shot this at 254mm on his Canon 100-500mm, wide open at f/5 and a 1/4 second shutter speed at IOS 320. The camera was camouflaged and remotely triggered. Matt liked the amount of detail he got in the background at f/5, but found the trunk of the pine on the right to be a bit distracting, so he attached some greenery to a small light stand and positioned that in the foreground to hide that part of the trunk. That also helped add a sense of depth.

King Rails growing up

Matt’s last post was a shot of a Clapper Rail Parent with its chick, so he thought to show the closely related King Rail today. Additionally, he thought it would be fun to show a whole series as a king rail grows into adulthood. This first shot shows a days-old chick getting fed by an adult, and the subsequent images show birds that get progressively older, ending with an adult. Notice how the plumage starts almost jet black. Then, it becomes more colorful and pattered over time.

King Rails look very similar to Clapper Rails, especially the Gulf Coast Clapper rails he showed in my last post, but King Rail adults are more boldly patterned, brighter in color, and Matt finds they almost always have more red color in the face and cheek compared to the gray face of the Clapper. King Rails also favor fresh water marshes whereas Clappers tend to live in saltier environments. However, there can be overlap, and even hybridization between the two species in brackish estuary systems.

These photos were all taken at Sweetwater Wetlands Park in Gainesville FL

Editing note: Matt decided not to include the unedited versions of the photos since there are so many, but he didn't make any major changes to these and didn’t do any cloning/removal.

King Rails growing up

Matt’s last post was a shot of a Clapper Rail Parent with its chick, so he thought to show the closely related King Rail today. Additionally, he thought it would be fun to show a whole series as a king rail grows into adulthood. This first shot shows a days-old chick getting fed by an adult, and the subsequent images show birds that get progressively older, ending with an adult. Notice how the plumage starts almost jet black. Then, it becomes more colorful and pattered over time.

King Rails look very similar to Clapper Rails, especially the Gulf Coast Clapper rails he showed in my last post, but King Rail adults are more boldly patterned, brighter in color, and Matt finds they almost always have more red color in the face and cheek compared to the gray face of the Clapper. King Rails also favor fresh water marshes whereas Clappers tend to live in saltier environments. However, there can be overlap, and even hybridization between the two species in brackish estuary systems.

These photos were all taken at Sweetwater Wetlands Park in Gainesville FL

Editing note: Matt decided not to include the unedited versions of the photos since there are so many, but he didn't make any major changes to these and didn’t do any cloning/removal.

Matt has been having too much fun lately sitting in the mud with the rails! Here a Clapper Rail parent watches over its chick, who is snacking on some sort of little invertebrate. Located on Shired island FL

Matt and I had the privilege of tracking these two little ones from egg to fledge. He wrote up a really nice blog about our experience in the sandhills watching these babies grow and some of the photographic challenges of working with a nocturnal species. Read the whole story here:

https://www.birdlifephoto.com/Pages/Blog/Screech-owl-in-the-Sandhill

That video in the end of the grey one fledging is worth the watch!

These babies were in Gilchrist county, Florida

I believe the beetle is grape colaspis but this guy had a weird red thing on one leg. It was only present on this one side. Is that a different bug or maybe something else?

The Bachman’s Sparrow is a tiny fire-dependent sparrow that inhabits the pine forests of the southeast. Their “here-kitty-kitty-kitty” is one of the most distinctive songs in the pinelands and along with the bobwhite quail, bluebirds, and nuthatches it is a defining feature of the morning chorus of this unique habitat.

Yes, this is 100% a hen. She has been crowing like this back at my roosters for years. Now that it’s spring she’s sounding off every morning. Despite the discordant rhythms of her serenade I crack up every time.