Took my yearly fall visit to Shenandoah National Park. While the peak color has faded there is still a lot of colorful scenery. The park was busy with visitors as many took advantage of a nice fall day. The overlooks and hiking trail parking lots were filled with cars. Despite a government shutdown, the visitor centers were staffed and open and during the shutdown, the entry fee is being waived.

Skyline Drive offers fantastic views of the surrounding landscape. It can be a little frustrating for photographers due to the limited opportunities to pull over and photograph, especially during high visitation days, but there are still plenty of opportunities to photograph, take a hike, or just plop down of a rock and relax.

A trip to Shenandoah’s Skyline Drive in the fall season, is always worthwhile. Through the changes in elevation along the drive, the landscape is in various states of color change. I arrived early enough to avoid the heavier traffic that usually occurs during this time of year.

Pull-offs along the drive provide some very nice views of the color change.

The morning sun also helps enrich the colors of the trees in the scenery along the drive.

Very pretty views are also available right along the drive.

This past week I made a couple of trips to Shenandoah National Park and Huntley Meadows Park, a Fairfax County park in Virginia. The weather was spectacular with lower than normal temperatures and humidity for this time of year. One of the few places in my area that I can see a Belted Kingfisher is Huntley Meadows. Food is plentiful in the wetlands there for the Kingfisher.

In Shenandoah, traveling down Skyline Drive, there are usually frequent sightings of white-tailed deer along the road. Occasionally you can spot a black bear and perhaps a rare sighting of a bobcat. While I wasn’t lucky to spot any bear or bobcat on this trip, I did see a number of deer and a turkey with chicks.

If you get a chance to visit Huntley Meadows, it is very worthwhile. The wetlands there draw a wide range of birdlife throughout the year. The park is more than just birds though, you have the chance of seeing deer, beavers, otters, snakes, turtles, frogs and a variety of insects and other wetland wildlife. Below are some photos from this week’s visit.

My first visit to Everglades National Park….it’s about time. The third largest national park in the continental U.S. Called the “river of grass”, it is a protected ecosystem containing wetlands, forests, and wildlife.

For bird photographers, it is a real paradise. I’ve posted some of the species found in the park below. The image above is the Black-crowned night heron.

The Green heron, patiently waiting to spot its next meal.

The Great blue heron.

The Little blue heron.

The Great egret.

The White ibis (juvenile).

The Anhinga (female).

The Purple gallinule. Watching them skip over lilly pads is entertaining.

Its’s not all wading birds in the Everglades. There are many species of birds including the Barred owl.

The Everglades offers wonderful landscape scenes as well as all of the birds. This early morning image was taken from the boardwalk near the Royal Palm Visitor Center,

Couldn’t leave out one of the frequently sighted inhabitants of the park, the alligator.

If you are visiting the Everglades, a trip to Big Cypress National Preserve is an absolute must. The landscape seems foreign to what you might typically expect in the United States. Massive Cypress trees growing out of the swamp, lush vegetation, plenty of alligators, birds, butterflies, and insects. You can spend many hours here, photographing it all.

You will see hundreds of bromeliads here in the Preserve. They attach themselves to the cypress tress using their roots. They are airplants in the pineapple family. This one above, in bloom.

Birds are abundant, such as this great egret. The waters are filled with good fishing and hunting for them. Again, you can see all of the bromeliads covering the cypress trees.

Among the insects found here are numerous dragonflies and I also spotted many zebra longwing butterflies, the state butterfly of Florida. At almost every stop, you can spot an alligator either in the water or just sunning right next to the road. As for mosquitoes….well, they can be a problem if there is no breeze around, just be prepared.