Big Cypress early odes
April in Florida is odonate heaven and I took advantage. Spent two days driving the loop road, wading (rubber boots only, please) a few edges, and mostly staying on the boardwalks where you get long sight lines.
Species list from memory: Roseate Skimmer (the pink one), Great Pondhawk, Band-winged Dragonlet, two Halloween Pennants already, a Little Blue Dragonlet (small and lovely), Common Green Darner, a handful of damselflies I’m not splitting. A single Swamp Darner cruised over one slough and I got exactly one frame.
Other things: a Barred Owl at an oak at 10:30 AM, very relaxed. Two American Alligators of reasonable size, far enough away I could use a long lens without worry. A Swallow-tailed Kite — my first of the year — threading through the canopy for about thirty seconds. Several Snail Kites over wetter bits, a Limpkin that found an apple snail and did the whole extraction procedure in front of me.
Florida in April is the kind of place where you lose an hour just watching things happen. The light gets rough by noon but is superb in the last two hours before sunset, which was my main shooting window.
Caught mosquitoes on a field jacket. Better them than me, I guess.
