Red-bellied Woodpecker (Centurus carolinus)

Perched on Camphor Tree, Sebring, Highlands County, Florida

Woodpeckers are funny little birds. So far this year I’ve only seen two families, but, it’s only the 18th!

We have a family of red-bellied woodpeckers coming around, at least I think it is a family. There is a male and a female that come down the tree and eat the feast left for them, the other one stays up in the tree though, only allowing glimpses of its tail.

I love when they take an afternoon siesta, they lay close to the tree while still clinging to it, just resting. They are still ever watchful of what is happening around, turning their heads this way and that, but they stay quiet and just lean into the tree.
Our other woody friend is a Downy Woodpecker. After watching our other family that is always close by to each other, this poor guy goes solo. Makes me almost want to go searching for a mate for him, so he doesn’t have to go hunting through the spanish moss all alone.

Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) with peanut.
Sebring, Highlands County, FL

Those loud-mouthed and bossy blue-jays, gotta love them!

With their beautiful blue crest and their lighter colored bodies, yup, gotta love ‘em. Even as they overfill their beaks with peanuts, their constant chatter always brings a smile to my face. We are awaiting on babies. Or maybe eggs too. There is a couple that have built their nest in one of our closer pine trees. Unfortunately for us, the nest is probably 35-feet in the air. We go out and quietly listen every day to see if we hear babies, wish us luck!

A beautiful little bird stopped by today. A tiny thing that looks at you with a beautiful ‘mask’.

Unfortunately it seems to be skittish. Well, I guess that could be a good thing in that it zooms away, but, I hate to see it releasing all that energy when it doesn’t have to. Poor thing so far has been a loner, but it does try to come near when the sparrows are around. Problem with that is, they scare it away.

I hope it comes back so that I can get some better images, from what I am able to see though, I think it is a female yellow-rumped warbler.

Update: Feb 07 2007 > She has been back now, for a few days. I am 99.9% positive at this point that she is the Yellow-rumped Warbler, like I thought she was. Especially since her pretty and very bright yellow-rump is starting to show more!

Yellow-rumped Warbler “Myrtle Warbler” (Dendroica coronata)
Sebring, Highlands County, Florida

To start off this brand new year, we now have a brand new website!

Some pages are still under construction for now as we transfer everything, but we have decided against going with a flash site and to stick with our regular XHTML and CSS.

With the new look and the new year, we will have more information available, from equipment to techniques to books and beyond. We will be starting our article section that will hold articles, tips and tricks that have worked for us.

New colors, new layout and hopefully soon a new gallery program that will make searching much easier for our visitors, and captioning and keywording much easier for us.

And while we are doing things a new way, I’d like to give credit where it is due. I saw a better way to keep track of image id’s, than to just have the image number listed in the title section. The thanks and credit goes to Frans Lanting or whomever decided to include the image id on the image itself, along with copyright notice. This makes great sense! And between Frans’ website and John Shaw’s book, Business of Nature Photography, A Professional’s Guide to Marketing and Managing a Successful Nature Photography Business, I have learned a much better way to organize, number and categorize my images. I had been trying different ways, but was not quite happy, especially trying to remember everything. So, the new way is easier, faster and much more efficient. I love when I get help and ideas from professionals I admire, even if they don’t know they are helping me!