The Best Place to Photograph Birds in Florida
The best place to photograph birds in Florida is Fort De Soto Park. Sure, there are other wonderful bird photography hotspots in Florida, but for my money the place to go is Fort De Soto. Here’s why.
First is the great diversity of birds you can find any time of the year at De Soto. Saturday I visited the park from 7am to 9:30am and in that two and a half hours I photographed seven species of birds. This includes a couple of juvenile Little Blue Herons in fantastic calico plumage, a juvenile Reddish Egret, about a dozen Marbled Godwits working in the shallows slurping up worms, a Snowy Egret standing in beautiful light right off the beach, a Red-breasted Merganser scooting on and under the water with absolutely no concern for the people nearby, a curious Semipalmated Plover, and an American Oystercatcher family. There were also other birds that I didn’t photograph, such as Least Terns, Brown Pelicans, Ospreys, Black Skimmers, Royal Terns, Laughing Gulls, a variety of other plovers, Sanderlings, and Great Egrets. There’s probably more, but that’s the thing about De Soto. It’s not if you can find birds, it’s which birds do you want to photograph. And keep in mind, this is July - a hot and humid month where birding is slow.
Marbled Godwit slurping up a worm. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/6.3, ISO 1000, 1/2500 sec.
Marbled Godwit. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/6.3, ISO 1000, 1/2500 sec.
De Soto is also a great place to photograph birds because of the freedom you have to move around. Many parks restrict visitors to trails, boardwalks, or drives - but not De Soto. Aside from the roped off areas for the protection of nesting birds, you can go anywhere at De Soto. That means you have flexibility to move around and position yourself to get good light on your subject. For example, to take these photos of a Snowy Egret and a Little Blue Heron, I waded 20 feet into the water so I could frame the subjects exactly how I wanted.
Snowy Egret. I waded out into the water about 20 feet to take this photo. Shutter speed increased to 1/3200 even though the bird was still to account for the waves knocking me about. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/6.3, ISO 800, 1/3200 sec.
Juvenile Little Blue Heron. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/6.3, ISO 800, 1/2500 sec.
Fort De Soto is renowned for its great backgrounds for two reasons. First, the birds tend to be out in the open so you can get good subject to background separation. When shot with a wide aperture you can get sharp birds with smooth backgrounds. Second, the grasses, skies, sand, mud, and water provide a wonderful color palate of pale blues, soft pinks, warm browns, and soft whites - just wonderful for nature photography.
Juvenile Little Blue Heron playing with a plant stalk. The cool blue tones of the mud contrast with the warm green and brown tones of the beach grass in the background. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/6.3, ISO 640, 1/2500 sec.
You can get close to birds at Fort De Soto. De Soto’s birds are habituated to human presence and you can really get close without disturbing them. Of course there is a limit to how close you can get, but this distance is much shorter than anywhere else I’ve been in Florida. For example, the Reddish Egret often forages in shallow water with a small (sometimes large) group of photographers in tow as it dances in the water in search of fish. It doesn’t seem to mind at all. Other birds, like the Red-breasted Merganser shown below, will often pass photographers within the minimum focusing distance of their lens as it goes about its business. In the photo below, the merganser got out of the water and walked along the beach to a tidal lagoon, passing a few feet from me. It also passed a few families and one of the kids yelled, “look at that duck!”
Juvenile Reddish Egret. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/6.3, ISO 500, 1/2500 sec.
Red-breasted Merganser. Relatively unphased by all the people walking out to the beach, this little Merganser casually walks from one lagoon to another. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/7.1, ISO 800, 1/3200 sec.
Semipalmated Plovers are also unphased by people. Often, I will sit or lay on the beach and a curious little Semipalmated Plover will make a bee-line straight towards me. Because of this natural curiosity it’s possible to get some wonderful close-up photos. Here is a photo of a Semipalmated Plover giving a quizzical look. I then did a heavy crop and was able to retain a good amount of detail. Same image with different crops can produce some interesting results!
Semipalmated Plover with curious expression. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/7.1, ISO 640, 1/3200 sec.
Semipalmated Plover (cropped in). This is the same photo as above. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/7.1, ISO 640, 1/3200 sec.
Birds exhibit fantastic behavior at Fort De Soto. As bird photographers we work hard to avoid disturbing the birds so that they will continue to go about their business as usual. It’s that behavior that we want to photograph, and at De Soto it’s usually feeding behavior. Below is a photo of the same Semipalmated Plover pulling a worm out of the mud. The Little Blue found something to snack on, and the adult American Oystercatcher passed a mollusk to its offspring. All wonderful behavior that is commonplace at De Soto.
Semipalmated Plover demonstrating feeding behavior. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/6.3, ISO 250, 1/2500 sec.
Juvenile Little Blue Heron demonstrating feeding behavior. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/6.3, ISO 1000, 1/2500 sec.
American Oystercatcher (“Archie”) feeding his banded offspring. Nikon Z9 with handheld Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 lens at f/6.3, ISO 500, 1/3200 sec.
If you find yourself in Florida wanting to take some bird photos, I strongly recommend you head to Fort De Soto Park near St. Petersburg. You’ll find some beautiful birds there anytime of the year and you won’t leave disappointed. Don’t believe me yet? Check out the Audubon Photo Awards: The Top 100. Photos taken at Fort De Soto make the list - every single year.
Looking for another amazing place to photograph birds in Florida. Check out this post.
Happy birding!
