This past Saturday myself and a friend went on a road trip to Gainesville, Florida to visit the Butterfly Rainforest, associated with the University of Florida. It was rather an overcast day, with the sun sneaking out on occasion. We looked along the way at different small ponds and the like to see what we could find.
Well, we found this rather small pond with numerous pairs of hooded mergansers. We setup with our tripods and camo, and ended up being able to get ourselves some nice images. Of the three kinds of mergansers found in North American, the red-breasted and common the others, the hooded merganser is the smallest.
The other three kinds of mergansers are the Chinese, Brazilian and Auckland Islands mergansers. The Hoodie is the only merganser endemic to North America. We were able to get our shoot in before the rains came, and then we were off to the Butterfly Rainforest. Being a bit cool and a tad wet, did not make for great butterfly activity. I learned that until a butterflies body temperature reaches 100 degrees, it just does not do much flying or moving around. But, we made do and I was able to get a few images I liked.
Nancy Elwood
Nancy Elwood is a Florida based professional nature and wildlife photographer. Her interest in the natural world started as a child reading and watching National Geographic. After graduating from Florida State University School of Nursing, she developed her interest in photography travelling with several National Geographic photographers to Africa, Antarctica and the Falkland Islands. With them she started to hone her skills in capturing natures wonders through a camera lens. Nancy now, when not in the field, shows her work in juried art shows and runs photography workshops.
Leave a Reply