Southwest Florida bird photography (page 12)
Anhinga Trail within Everglades National Park

This is a must see location for those visiting the Everglades National park.  The birds here are unusually tame, allowing you to get within feet of them.  So if you are looking for close-ups, it is hard to find a location with as many opportunities.  It is only a couple of miles inside the park past the entrance on the left.  There is trail system here that is either paved with water along one side and continues on to a raised walkway over a series of ponds.  In the water you will find a large number of alligators and wading birds that seem to know how to walk among them without getting too close and becoming a meal.  I noticed on one occasion an alligator stalking a great blue heron, but as the alligator got closer, the heron gingerly walked around a clump of reeds, keeping some distance between it and this 8 foot carnivore.

We hit this location both in the late afternoon up to sunset, and the next morning at sunrise.  The crowds were greater at sunset, and lighting-wise or in terms of bird photography, either time seemed to work OK.  While here I noted the following birds: Anhinga, double crested cormorants, great blue heron, little blue heron, tri-color heron, redish egret, limpkin, great egret, snowy egret, black vulture, green heron, purple gallinule, common moorhen, northern water thrush, eastern phoebe, ash colored fly catcher, belted kingfisher.  The most frequent birds where the anhinga which have a number of nests with their young within easy photography range, and then the somewhat annoying black vultures that seemed a bit too much in your face.  I tried to be careful not to leave my big lens on the tripod unattended with the vultures about as they looked like they may want to use it as a perch.

After hitting Anhinga trail, some of the other locations in the park seemed lackluster from a bird photography perspective.  The contrast in the number of birds here versus other locations in the park was striking. You may want to consider to more landscape style photography for other areas of the park if here at sunrise or sunset.