New Kayak

Today I tried out the new Hobie Revolution kayak.  It comes with a foot drive and it will be my new platform for wildlife photography.  The foot drive works great and allows your hands to be free for taking photographs.  Felton and I paddled from Pepper Park over to the Fish House restaurant in Fort Pierce for lunch.  Here are a few photos from the day.

The dance of the pelican, with seagulls.

The pelican was taken with a Nikon D90, Nikor 58-200mm zoom, at 200mm, shutter priority @ 1/1250 sec., f/5.6, ISO-200. High shutter speed to stop the motion.

In the next photo, I was trying to blur the motion of the Blue Heron's wings on takeoff, so I used all of the same settings as above except a shutter speed of 1/320 sec.:

Great Blue Heron at liftoff.

My brother, Felton, with the Cat he covets in the background.

This last photo was taken coming out of the Harbortown Marina in Ft. Pierce. Felton would like to have the Catamaran "Flyer" in the background.

All Five Members of the Owl Family

When I first arrived at the owl tree today, I was startled to find only one fledgling and the mother in the tree. I first assumed that the other two babies had flown away, but after searching some adjacent oak trees, I found both Grumpy and Happy perched near each other about 50 yards away in their own tree. So, we can say that Grumpy and Happy are fully fledged, obviously. Sleepy, the straggler, was near mom and appeared a little tentative about flying still. Dad was in his usual place, in another oak tree just north of the nest tree, overlooking his now almost complete, fledged, or weaned family, whichever term you prefer. Last year they were all gone by the middle of March, so I expect that this family will be gone in about a week. Until next year, best of luck, guys!

Here are today's pictures of each member of the family, perhaps for the last time.

You did a good job, mom, you should be proud.

Dad kept the family well fed while mom looked after the kids.

Grumpy, you were the largest, progressed the fastest, and are probably female.

Happy, you were in the middle and second to fly, probably a male.

The always photogenic Sleepy, the last to fly, also a male.

And here's an extra photo of Sleepy, my favorite. Sleepy was always the funniest, most laid back, and therefore the last to get serious about getting airborne. Mr. Personality, too:

Sleepy, you were the funny one, always ready to be photographed!