Wakodahatchee Wetlands (lots of amazing birds!)

A wonderful day Sunday shooting the abundant birds and wildlife at this Delray, Florida wetlands park...the sheer diversity of species there was amazing, and fresh off winter breeding, lots of young chicks were born. Most shots taken at full telephoto with a 1.7x telephoto extender (732mm optical total).

A scarlet macaw who has taken up residence in the wetlands:


Three aningha chicks scream to momma to feed them:


Very large alligator resting on shore, covered in moss:


Great egret on the hunt for fish:


Ducklings in mom's wake as she guides them through the grasses:


Tri-colored heron:


Blue heron chick taking a look around out of the nest, with a pose just like her momma above her:


A very colorful, and fairly rare duck - this is a black-bellied whistling duck:


An excellent little fisherman, this is a least tern:


Here, a moorhen momma feeds her two newborn chicks, with eyes only just opened:


A blue heron sits down on its nest, on guard for any intruders:


A link to my gallery from this visit - 69 photos:

http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg/wakodahatchee_wetlands

Visits welcome. Comments, critique, questions welcome. Always looking to improve! I am very happy I found this location, and intend to go back often...it's an amazing wildlife location, open sunrise to sunset, and free.

 

Thank you!

At this place, you can generally pull to within 30 feet of most of the birds. They are not too skittish - since it is a frequented location, they are used to seeing people wandering within range of them, and will stay in place until the last possible moment before taking flight and honking in alarm.

With 750mm equivalent, you should be just fine for this place. Most photographers and birding websites that shoot there recommend at least 300mm for Wakodahatchee - so anything over 500mm is well within the sweet spot.

Some of the birds, like the tern and the macaw, let me get within 5 feet of them. The flying duck was about the farthest I had to reach to shoot - he was probably 60-80 feet off as he flew by. The nesting herons were around 35-45 feet off, and most of the other birds were around 15-30 feet.

 

The place is unique for that - it is actually a wildlife reserve area - it's not a zoo or a caged location. The birds are all either local inhabitants or winter migration birds who have just taken to this spot as it is a lush marsh with a reliable water supply and safe from hunting and other intrusion. The wetlands is one of three now in Palm Beach county that have been started off of water treatment ponds and runoff areas - they allow marsh plants to grow to help filter the waters and allow it to flow naturally back into the ground. Inevitably, this attracts everything nearby, from alligators to rabbits to birds, who love the abundant plant life, fish and water. The county built a 2-mile boardwalk through the marshes which is open to the public from sunrise to sunset. It is a photographer's dream!

I also spend alot of time out at Arthur Marshall Wildlife Reserve at the north end of the Everglades - that is a more typical sanctuary/reserve area with animals and birds spread out over dozens of miles, and much more wary of people.

If you ever head down to Florida, as a photographer I'd recommend an excursion to Wakodahatchee Wetlands - you can shoot the whole day and not shoot the same bird twice.

 

beautiful stuff, justin. looks like a very peaceful locale.

 

Thank you Tim. Definately a soothing place to go - an oasis in suburbia!

Jann, You are in the right direction...just a bit north. Delray Beach is roughly 1 hour south of Ft. Pierce by highway (about 65 miles). Vero is just a few miles north of Ft. Pierce.

In order to get more of the marshy, swampy Florida...you have to get south of Lake Okeechobee...the big eye in the middle of the peninsula. Ft. Pierce and Vero beach are built up on the scrub pine forests and along the ocean mangrove islands and patches. Our eastern areas along the coast are very much the same type of terrain. But if you head west 10-15 miles, you hit the marshy, swampy lands that have been partially drained and diverted for westward expansion. When they leave a patch of the marsh like this, all the birds and wildlife flock there, because so much of the rest of the swamp are now filled with houses!

Thank you for the kind comments.

 

nice pictures, love the macaw.
You're right about us all living in "the swamp". It amazes me how many people down here have no idea that their whole neighboorhood used to be under a couple of feet of water, before the cattle were there, before the developers came in!

 

Let's hope noone gets reminded too rudely someday! If those Okeechobee levees ever let go again after a hurricane, alot of reclaimed land is going to want to become swamp again. Happened in the '26 hurricane, when the levees were still fairly new.

I'm on the border myself - we live on the back end of the scrub flats, with the former swamp beginning about 4 miles west of me. The east side of Florida had a little more solid land than the west side where you are...but not much!

Thank you on the pictures.