Southwest Florida bird photography (page 5)
Six Mile Cypress Slough

Located in the middle of Fort Myers off of SR 865 (Ben C Pratt parkway) about 2 miles north of county highway 876, this slough is somewhat of an island of swamp wildlife surrounded by development.  There is a boardwalk here over a mile in length that takes you through this forest of swampland and a couple of different ponds.  Entrance to this slough is free, with parking at $1 per hour.  On our visit in the middle of the day, the bird sightings were more limited to a few woodland birds including red-bellied woodpecker, gray catbird, and some warblers (The docent reports that pileated woodpeckers are also common). On the ponds edge we observed a red shouldered hawk which are quite frequent in Florida, a great egret, and black crowned night heron.  In the water we observed a few alligators, and an otter swimming through the swampland, ducking under the boardwalk on occasion.  One thing we learned about photographing in these dense forests on long boardwalks is that lugging around a 8.5 pound 500mm lens is very unwieldy to photograph the smaller birds in close-in quarters.  Trying to track them and get a shot off is extremely difficult.  I found the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS lens handheld on the cropped body to be a better choice for this kind of situation.