Spacecoast Birding & Wildlife Festival

After many years of hearing about this festival I decided I would go this year. It's only about an hour away so I commuted each day. I wasn't considering how early I would have to get up when I signed up for 6:15 AM workshops. I did a mix of birding field trips and photography workshops. The weather was a mixed bag as is common in Florida during January. The first field trip was at the Enchanted Forest, Birding by Ear. That is a real skill to be able to ID a bird from its sounds and songs. Enchanted Forest is on RT. 405 and a place worthy of another visit. Home base for the festival was at Eastern Florida State College. In between outings there were indoor classes and an expo featuring the latest birding and photography gear. The afternoon of the first day we went on our own to explore Bio Lab Road at the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. There were white pelicans, roseate spoonbills, kingfishers, a variety of shore birds, egrets, herons, and warblers. Alligators were also in abundance along the small canals.

Day Two: I met our group at Parrish Park for " Birds in Flight" photography workshop lead by David Akoubian at 6:15 AM. The Sunrise was non spectacular with all the heavy cloud cover. We concentrated on an area with great white egrets, spoonbills, snowys, cattle egrets, reddish egrets, glossy and white ibis. With all the activity is was a great spot to practice our flight skills. I was using my gimbal head and trying to get used to it. My tripod was too short for this and later I purchased a new and more sturdy tripod. I will be referring to it as the "beast" from now on! We ended up back at Parrish Park where a large group of Black Skimmers were hanging out. We ended with rain but I stayed and the weather cleared enough to shoot the skimmers. I wish the light had been better but I can go back and try again next weekend.

Day Three: Saturday we signed up for Wings Over Florida with four very knowledgable leaders including Gregg Miller, whose birding story was featured in the movie, The Big Year. His character was played by Jack Black. We started at the Rt. 50 boat ramp where they were spotting many species of birds, most of which I would have never seen on my own. The second location was Blue Heron Wetlands.


Our expert leaders on the Wings over Florida Fieldtrip.
And yes, this is Florida!  Photo by Nanci Adler

The second part of the day we did the Sunset and Birding Photography with Vinnie Colucci at the Viera Wetlands. A great find for me was the Hooded Mergansers. Hope to have some usable images of those beautiful creatures. Vinnie let me use his 1.7 converter on my lens. I liked the effect but needed to change some other settings to keep my shutter speed up high enough. As a result I lost the sharpness on the snowy egrets that were fishing in front of us. The clouds cleared away so sunset was not as great as it could have been. It was a great day and Vinnie is a great and gracious teacher.

Day Four: I hope to return to this festival again next year but I will either stay over night closer to the birding locations or do every other day. As tired as I was, I woke at 4 AM and drove over to Viera in 31 degrees and met my last group for Sunrise and Birding led by Kathryn Dow. She was a great instructor both in photography and extremely knowlegable about the birds. We set up for sunrise first and then drove to some other locations for bird photography. She found an American Bittern for us and later even spotted a Least Bittern.