Category: Life in Florida

Dharma’s Birds of Florida- update

For BIRD LOVERS and BIRD PHOTOGRAPHERS.  Use the link below to see “Dharma’s BIRDS of  FLORIDA” 

Click on each image to see the enlarged version.

These are pictures I took on my  trip to Florida in Nov 2017. I spent 1-2 days with each of our batch mates. Wimal and Iranthi in Marco Island, Sam and Kathy, Sarasota, Johnpulle  and Angela, Tampa, Devacaanthan and Thanam, Fort Myers. All of them went out of their way to cater to my craziness for bird photography. ( T  Not forgetting the gastronomical treat). A BIG thank you to all of them. Fortunate to go on “Photo safari” with Sam to a rookery, in Venice, Florida about 1 1/2 hour from Sam’s place. Sam has already put his rookery  pictures on our web. He wanted me to give my pictures also. But as usual, I was not ready until now. Some Pictures are for our web page. Others will be in the link below.  Did not want to  clutter the web page.

dharma’s BIRDS of FLORIDA.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Sam’s Photo Challenge

 

 

 

This is Day 7 of my 7-day photo challenge. I was nominated by a friend to post one nature photo a day for 7 days and nominate a new person every day. Photos don’t have to be recent. They can be sometime during your lifetime but taken by “YOU”. The goal is to flood Facebook with beautiful nature photos
I am finishing up with a Butterfly photo. Recently I visited the “Butterfly Rain Forest”, in Gainesville Florida. Butterflies are hard to photograph because of their agility, unless you find them early in the morning (wet feathers) or catch them in a sex act. I found two Zebra butterflies in………you guessed it. See below. I hope FB doesn’t censor this photo due to it’s mature content!
Thank you all for for your likes and comments.
Thank you Vincent Veneruso for nominating me. I enjoyed it.

Sam

 

 

 

More Butterfly Images from our Nature Expert Eagle Deepthie!

 

 

These are some butterfly photos taken at Chaya Blue Butterfly Garden .
There were hundreds and hundreds of them in the little garden.
I had a hard time staying away from it !

There was a Naturalist available to help me ID the butterflies – which was
just great .
This garden is in the wild- just a patch of garden, that  this man had
started a Butterfly Garden, and I just admired  his Love  and Enthusiasm for
butterflies  !

Common Tiger- is the one that looks like our Monarch  and you can see the
Milkweed plant and flower too- that has that irritant milky sap .

 

 

Deepthie

Sam’s Photo Challenge

 

 

 

 

This is Day 6 of my 7-day photo challenge. I was nominated by a friend to post one nature photo a day for 7 days and nominate a new person every day. Photos don‘t have to be recent. They can be sometime during your lifetime but taken by “YOU”. The goal is to flood Facebook with beautiful nature photos


This image was taken on our return trip from Denali in Alaska. We were actually sitting in the last rail car looking out the window catching the front of the train taking the curve.

Sam

 

 

Alaskan adventure copy

Sam’s Photo Challenge

This is Day 2 of my 7-day photo challenge in Face Book. I was nominated by a friend to post one nature photo a day for 7 days and nominate a new person every day. Photos don’t have to be recent. They can be sometime during your lifetime but taken by “YOU”. The goal is to flood Facebook with beautiful nature photos.

 

 

This photo was taken several years ago in Palm Springs California. I was fortunate to have a HummingBird post for me.

“Life in Florida”- By Sam Samarasinghe

 

 

Living in Florida after my retirement 5 years ago I have enjoyed observing the nature around this beautiful state. That is one of the reasons I took up photography as a serious hobby. Use of computer techniques for my photography also led me to create this RU blog for the benefit of all my Batchmates.

Enough about me, This post is about Sandhill Cranes. Sandhill cranes are large (2-4 ft) grey colored birds with huge wingspans. They have a characteristic red foreheads with long dark pointed beaks. For the most part they are migratory birds who arrive in Florida in huge flocks from Canada and upper midwest. They head back in late February/ March. They frequently have aloud trumpeting  call that can be heard from a long distance particularly during mating period.

There is a small resident population of Sandhill Cranes in Sarasota (where I live)  and few cities in western Florida, where we get to watch these birds year round.

My story is about a couple that I spotted near my house during the mating season. The female laid two eggs close to a small pond. I took a series of photos prior to hatching and continued to watch them for around  3weeks. Unfortunately I missed the actual hatching. The pictures below explain the events as they unfolded. Click on images to open the gallery. It was a beautiful event to watch.Enjoy!

Sam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

%d bloggers like this: