A group of seven eager photographers made our annual journey to Blue Cypress Lake to photograph nesting Osprey.  The lake is a very special and unique place.  It has very little development and, consequently very little activity.  What it does have is a western shoreline that contains hundreds of beautiful Blue Cypress Trees growing into its shallow shoreline.  It also has a slice of old Florida:  Middleton's Fish Camp.  They run a fishing camp and there are trailer/cabins that you can rent if you want to stay on the lake.  There are is also a small community of permanent residents in the area.  I don't know how it started, but Middleton's also has a very active pontoon boat rental business, with or without a pilot.  You rent the pontoon boat and go out on the lake to experience one of the very special Florida bird photography opportunities.  Nesting in the Cypress trees you will find about 250 nesting pairs of Osprey, one of my favorite birds.  If you go in late April, your odds of finding a lot of nests with chicks of various ages increases.  This year was no exception.  When the nests have chicks, the parents have to fly to get food, and there are a lot of flight opportunities.

This year, our little band of friends was joined by Charles Glatzer and Dave Kelly, of Shoot the Light.  Chas and Dave were in the area getting ready for the annual birding festival up in St. Augustine.  We were happy to have them with us.  With seven photographers we hired two boats with pilots for two morning shoots.  It turned out to be a good thing to go two mornings as the light was significantly better on the second day.

So, where is Blue Cypress Lake?  It is about a half hour west of Vero Beach Florida.  Middleton's is located at the GPS coordinates:  27°43'34" N 80°46'36" W.

Lightroom5_Catalog_lrcat_-_Adobe_Photoshop_Lightroom_-_Map

Here is a short slide show with some of my favorite images from this year:

Here is a map showing the location of my gallery images from this year:

Lightroom5_Catalog_lrcat_-_Adobe_Photoshop_Lightroom_-_Map-2

Finally, here is my gallery with images from the past few years.