I went on a photography trip to Florida with Fr. Charlie and Mark. We left on Monday, Feb 4, and did photography Feb 5-8. Mark and Fr. Charlie flew back on Friday, Feb 8, and I stayed over one extra day, and returned home on Saturday.
I took thousands of pictures which will take a while to go through. I decided to ‘divide and conquer’ and do a post for each location on our trip. There will be some repetition of the wildlife (e.g. the same common birds at each place), but it shows what we saw at each location. It will probably take a couple weeks to do all the posts.
Overview of Trip
We planned the trip ourselves, and didn’t use a guide. On Tuesday we went to Fort De Soto State Park in the morning, and Circle B Bar Preserve in the afternoon. On Wednesday we drove to Fort Myers, and stopped along the way at Myakka River State Park, Venice Rookery, and Manasota Key Beach (for the sunset). On Thursday we went to J.N. Ding Darling National Park in the morning, and Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in the afternoon. On Friday morning we went to Bunche Beach, and then we drove Fr. Charlie and Mark to the airport. From there, I went to my mother-in-law’s house (Mary Grace’s mom). We had a family gathering there, and I stayed the night and left on Saturday for home.
We flew Southwest Airlines non-stop flights, and rented a full-size SUV (a Chevy Tahoe).
I didn’t identify the Florida flowers in the photos. It takes too much time!
Here are links to posts for each location we visited on the trip:
Fort De Soto (this post)
Circle B Bar Reserve
Myakka River State Park
Venice Rookery
Manasota Key Beach (sunset)
J.N. Ding Darling National Park
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary
Bunche Beach
Here is a map. You can zoom in and out on the map. Click/touch the icon at the upper left to see locations for each day of our trip (starting with Day 2; Day 1 is travel to Tampa).
Fort De Soto State Park
We went to the East Beach, and wound up spending the entire morning there. There was an active Great Horned Owl nest that attracted a lot of birders and photographers. There were an amazing number of Osprey, and they were nesting along the beach.
There is a lot more to see at Fort De Soto, so we didn’t really do it justice. But we wanted to move on to Circle B Bar Preserve in the afternoon. I’ll describe that in the next post.
9 Comments
How fun! Great shots, Joe. I look look forward to the next batch.
Thanks! Circle B Bar Preserve is next.
Looks like you had a great time. I will be looking forward to your next post. I also liked your shpt with the wave.
Awesome photos!
Thanks!
Great photos! We went to a couple of those spots when we were on our Florida Audubon trip several years ago. Our photos were probably all iPhone! I like the owl chicks and the heron with his neck stretched out! How fun to see Elaine-how is she doing?
Thanks. Elaine is doing great! She hosted a family gathering, and I stayed the night at her place.
To think we were less than 20 miles away here in Pinellas county, I live on North County, Ft De Soto is South County. Would have loved to share the present of that Present moment. So glad to have shared that time at Mom’s with you! I love you, man!
You’re lucky to live in such a beautiful area. It was great to see you at your Mom’s! Love you too.
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[…] « Florida: Fort De Soto State Park, Feb 5, 2019 […]
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[…] next stop on our Florida photography trip (see here) was Manasota Key Beach. I just got a few sunset pictures. I probably should include them in one of […]
[…] 8th and final photography stop on our Florida trip (see here) was Bunche Beach. This post describes that stop, my visit with in-laws in Port Richey, and an […]