Florida Vacation – Jeremy Meyer Photography

I had an awesome vacation for butterflies, and I found lots of them, 33 species and 12 lifers! I spent about one week of my 3+ week vacation chasing butterflies. Out of that time, I was mostly in two spots. I spent several days at the Babcock/Webb Wildlife Management Area and a couple more at the State College of Florida in search of butterflies. I have seen a decent amount at these places in the past and this year was even better. I also spent half a day at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, looking for birds and butterflies. I found one Ruddy Daggerwing while walking the boardwalk. Then near the nature center, there were many more butterflies flying around, however most were away from the boardwalk. Weather was absolutely perfect this year, 82-86 degrees and sunny the entire vacation. The photos below are from my Florida vacation in February. Enjoy!

Baracoa Skipper

Barred Yellow

Cassius Blue

Ceranus Blue

Clouded Skipper

Common-checkered Skipper

Dainty Sulphur

Eufala Skipper

Fiery Skipper

Georgia Satyr

Gray Hairstreak

Great Southern White

Gulf Fritillary

Little Metalmark

Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak

Ocola Skipper

Palatka Skipper

Phaon Crescent

Red-banded Hairstreak

Ruddy Daggerwing

Sachem

Southern Broken-Dash

Swarthy Skipper

Tropical Checkered-Skipper

Twin-spot Skipper

Whirlabout

White Peacock

I was in Florida for 5 weeks this winter and it was amazing! This wasn’t just a bird vacation, rather a relaxing, enjoying the daily sun and not being in Wisconsin for winter type of vacation. I think I did less bird things than I would normally do, but I still ended up with over 150 species and 12 life birds. I tried to focus on a few birds that I had not seen before and without spending too much time driving for them. Snail Kite was a top priority, which I made a separate post about earlier this week. I also saw that Vermilion Flycatcher, Tropical Kingbird and Tricolored Munia (ABA bird) were being seen at Torry Island. I made several trips there but was unsuccessful with the Tricolored Munia. I found the other two, along with a Blue Grosbeak and several Painted Buntings. There was also an Indigo x Painted Bunting seen occasionally and I found that as well. Another spot I focused on was Three Lakes WMA. I saw that Brown-headed Nuthatch, Red-cockaded Woodpecker and Bachman’s Sparrow were seen among others. I had seen all three before, but I wanted to spend more time with photos on them. I did the Lake Apopka Wildlife Dr, which is only open on the weekends, and is an 11-mile one way drive. It’s basically water or marsh on both sides of the road and is incredible for photography. Another awesome place was St Marks NWR, which has been hosting an American Flamingo (ABA bird) for over a year. This time I was able to go and see it, among many other things. All in all, it was a very enjoyable time spent in Florida. I took over 15,000 photos and edited over 400, while down there! This is a very large photo gallery post, so please take your time going through it. If you have any questions or would like more info on any of the places I visited, feel free to contact me. Enjoy!