Tricolored Heron Doing the Dance at Sarasota Jungle Gardens Canvas Print

Most of us who photograph birds spend a goodly amount of time trying to photograph birds in motion. This heron is nearly always in motion, so I have many blurry photos of the bird. I caught this one at the Sarasota Jungle Gardens where birds tend to remain close to those of us trying to photograph them. It dances like this to move the sand around. Food in the sand thus becomes available.

The tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor), formerly known as the Louisiana heron, is a small species of heron native to coastal parts of the Americas; in the Atlantic region, it ranges from the northeastern United States, south along the coast, through the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, to northern South America as far south as Brazil. In the Pacific region, it ranges from Peru to California, but it is only a nonbreeding visitor to the far north.

Sarasota Jungle Gardens is one of Florida's few remaining roadside attraction. It's been open since 1939.A bit on the tacky side, but really a...

I love to tell stories. About twenty years ago I had my first freelance travel article accepted by a magazine. Much to my surprise, the magazine expected photos along with words. I had not taken any during the preliminary work for my article. I drove back to the site and took the photos for the article with my little Olympus digital camera. The article was published with those very amateur photos. In time, I bought an Olympus OMD-EM5, a great camera for nature and travel photographers and discovered that I enjoyed telling stories with pictures more than I did with words. The last twenty year have been an incredibly exciting time as resources for photographers have exploded. I have been lucky enough to have some great teachers along the way...