Celery Fields park, east of I-75 and south of Bee Ridge Road, in Sarasota used to be a celery farm. There is a gazebo on a small hill near the road with room to park about 10 cars. There are several species of very small water birds in the ponds, red wing blackbirds in the low shrubs, a hawk can often be seen in distant trees, and turkey vultures sometimes circle overhead. But, the big attraction for bird watchers are the sandhill cranes that fly into the pond just before sunset each night. They fly in groups of 2-5 and eventually there are 15-25 cranes in the shallow ponds.

Turtle beach has the usual pelicans and several varieties of gulls. Sometimes a big Louisiana Blue Heron is seen shadowing a fisherman and hoping for a handout. There are lots of stilt birds walking in and out of the waves looking for a meal. The largest number of birds appear in flocks of 40 or more in the late afternoon. Sometimes there are more gulls than one can count.

The Venice rookery is a small collection of trees on a small island in a pond off Route 41 near Jacaranda Blvd. in Venice, Florida. Blue herons, night herons, ibis, anhinga, and other birds fly in just before sunset to spend the night in the trees.

Our inventory is now full of fresh Florida images including anhinga, ibis, sea hawks, dolphin, boats, and palm trees.

No photography was allowed inside the show ring. That is understandable because it certainly would distract the dogs, handlers and judges. The show, itself, had 1 photographer with a digital set-up who photographed the winning dog at each judging.

The yorkshire terrier below was photographed with Derk’s digital Nikon.

Mote has the usual aquarium type tanks for tropical fish. The biggest problem photographing in that area of the facility is the ever present hobby photographer or visiting school group.

Mote also has a huge aquarium tank for manatee. It is necessary to use wide lens because the manatee are big. The best perspective for a picture is from the lower viewing area where you make an underwater shot. Reflections on the aquarium glass can be a big problem there.

Here are a couple of Derk’s pictures. The Jellyfish is available at kphotos.imagekind.com/TropicalFish as poster or framed print and the clownfish is also available there.:

City Walk’s current theme is “Scream Louder” as seen on billboards over I-4 highway.  And the 50,000 visitors were screaming Sunday!

Today we were seated at a window table at the Cheesecake Factory restaurant in the Mall at Millenium.  Fascinating parade of different types of humanity.