Early morning and the temperature already reached 77 degrees with some pretty high humidity. Not bad for west central Florida on September 30, well, a few degrees above average but after our record breaking heat during the summer, I’ll take it.
I purposely arrived very early for a class at Brooker Creek Preserve (Tarpon Springs, FL), and spent the time on a leisurely walk on the trails, in spite of feeling warm and sticky as soon as I left the air conditioned car. As to leisurely, the abundance of hungry mosquitoes did increase my pace quite a bit. Carolina chickadees and black and white warblers flitted overhead on the bird trail, two Common yellow-throat warblers flew by landing just long enough for me to get a look, and this Brown Thrasher landed right in front of me as I rejoined the main trail. I hoped for better light this overcast morning, but no such luck.
As to the class, well, I tried for years to teach myself sketching with little progress. Some online courses helped me somewhat, at least my drawings no longer looked like stick figures, but they still lacked any real features and looked awkward. I signed up for two four-hour botanical illustration workshops, and the wonderful instructor did a great job getting me past the really awkward drawings and giving me some confidence. People looked at my drawing and could actually identify it as an American Beauty Berry, though let’s face it, in Autumn in this area they are everywhere and those purple berry clusters are a dead giveaway.
Nichter Photography PLUS 