Favorites from past trips

Over the course of five to six winters spent primarily in the Everglades, I've taken hundreds of photos. Many photos have stories to go with them. Here is a sampling:

This photo is of an osprey eating a fish while perched on a roadside sign. If you examine this photo closely, you will see very fine lines running through it.This is because I was taking it through a window screen of my RV. The osprey was within a few feet of the window, ignoring me altogether. Without the screen between us I could have touched him.

Another:



A deer is just a deer, right? Wrong. This one was being stalked by a Florida panther. I had been taking pictures of the deer and filled my card in my camera. I was deleting photos when I heard a growl to my right. My dog, Buddy, was holding tight to my right side. The deer was to our immediate left. As the deer crossed our path and moved to our left, it unknowingly placed us between it and the panther. And, boy! was that cat ever mad! He growled three times, a very distinctive low, deep growl. I saw only the deep grass move where the growl  came from. It moved away from us and disappeared. I get goosebumps every time I tell someone of this encounter.

And more:

This young red-shouldered hawk allowed me to get up to only about ten feet from him. He never moved away from me while I snapped about 20 pictures. He must have only recently left the nest and still hadn't learned fear of people. I left and came back an hour or so later, and he was gone. I never saw him again.

And again:

I was directly underneath this osprey in our 14-foot skiff!! He'd look at me as I took pictures and actually seemed to enjoy it. I swear he was posing at times. He never moved away even though we were only about 15 feet below him.