Photos taken during the Fly South with the Birds workshop in Kissimmee, run by Jim Neiger of Flight School Photography. The purpose of the workshop is to learn to use large telephoto lenses to photograph birds in flight without a tripod. Most of these photos were taken while hand holding the 500mm f/4, a lens that weighs just under 9 pounds. The locations we visited included Lake Toho in Kissimmee where we saw snain kites, Lake Cypress, and Viera Wetlands. I was particularly interested in seeing and photographing the endangered snail kite which are plentiful on Lake Toho.

UPDATE: I just saw a news article about the photographer who runs this workshop. He has pleaded guilty to violating the Endangered Species Act by harassing snail kites off their nest. When I was on the workshop there were some questionable things like feeding a caracara on the side of a busy road, and overuse of recordings to bring in birds. I questioned those things at the time, and particularly objected to feeding a bird along side a road. This was several years ago and I didn't have the rehab volunteer experience that I do now, so I didn't speak up forcefully enough and eventually went along with it. However now I look at this as a learning experience, and have zero tolerance for any type of harassment or baiting. I strongly encourage anyone considering going on a workshop to ask first about the methods used and what ethical standards the instructors follow.