OneWoman's View
Natalie Ammarell Photography
2025 Photography
For me, this year started in the very last days of December 2024! As I like to do periodically I traveled down to Belmont, NC to enjoy and photograph the spectacular lights and wonders at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden. It wasn't TOO cold, so I was able to hang on to that camera for a while...
Year-round, of course, just walking around the campus of Carolina Meadows can bring little surprises. As the year closed, I encountered what amounted to a much larger surprise than usual. As I turned a corner, minding my own business, enjoying the crisp air and approaching sunset ...
In addition to the glorious fountain displays, there was a particular area that was lit up like fire! On the stroll through the red-orange arbors, it was as if one walked through fire!
Well, yes! Fierce as can be - ready to go! At all costs, so very important to protect the quarry...
...which I had absolutely no intention of stealing!!
I stopped dead in my tracks.
And stillness did the trick! For the next 10 minutes, I watched and carefully stole images. Mr. (or Mrs.) Hawk fed peacefully - now understanding that I was not a threat.
Wonderful images - closer than I have ever been to a fully wild hawk.
And then I walked on, not in the least worried that this would be a well fed hawk, fully able to protect its prey.
* * * *
After that ending to 2024, entry into the early months of this year were much more tame! In late January, with the holly bushes chock full of juicy berries, the "flocking" began. A few years ago, at my house, it was robins, robins, robins - making plenty of noise and stripping the bushes clean of berries. Here, this year, it was the Cedar Waxwings coming in droves and growing fatter by the minute!
In February, we had our "pretend" snow that you only saw if you got up pretty early in the morning!! And in March a turtle (oh, whoops, not really...). For real, though, I went down to Jordan Lake - not much bird life, but a gigantic spider web (no spider, of course).
Ok, so now you've figured out that my life is a bit more "sedate" in the first quarter of any year but especially as I grow older. However, there is always the saving grace of the flowers. They do not disappoint and as we progress through the year, you might come to agree with me that 2025 rivaled Covid year 2020 for the beauty of the flowers.
In February and March, the reliable and steadfast reminders that spring is coming... the daffies, crocus and lenten rose...we must give them credit for keeping our spirits up and hopeful! And then, suddenly, the early trees and the colorful blooms begin to pop, too!
But April does eventually come, with its emerging wildlife and its gorgeous floral displays.
At last!! The Martins are back - to discover a whole new set of nesting homes.
And, well, the flowers are quite spectacular this year. They speak for themselves...
* * * *
Came May and the first of my two annual vacation weeks on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Always a great chance for both R&R and a little bit of photography! There will be nothing remarkably new, here, but I still do love my visits to the Cypress Wetlands in Port Royal. A small, but totally packed, rookery where one can stroll around the lake and (with a decent lens) get some wonderful views of nests, eggs and chicks!
My delight this year came with finding a nesting pair of Little Blue Herons. My history with these lovely birds has been one of chasing them around the marshy water fringes - one at a time! Needless to say, I took an excessive number of images!
In this particular moment, storks were the dominant nesting species and there were many of them! They crowd the trees, not in the least disturbed by the nest immediately adjacent.
Considering that these chicks grow into majestic, black-and-white, swooping giants...they ARE ugly, no?
Fortunately, there were other species present to offer the colors of their mating displays.
The nest with this chick was also very high up and I got the immediate impression of a prayer for food - more food!! I had never seen such prominent green skin tones on egret chicks. When I looked it up, turns out that this is characteristic of an African subspecies of the great white egret. So the world wide movements and mixing continue!
Pushing south to the "space coast" - still in terrible heat - my next stop was one of my favorites: Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. On a Saturday morning, I had first to contend with a very large group of bikers (of the noisy, motor variety) who arrived at just the same moment as I. It took about half an hour for them to all straggle through, with their din and dust, before I was able to start my wanderings through the refuge. After the bikers, my first encounter was with a lovely bird I thought was a Willet, but soon discovered to be a Greater Yellowlegs - slightly smaller, with thinner beak and more attractive, I think...
One of the reasons I like this refuge is that it has such varied habitat. Along with the brush and wildflowers and little ponds seen above, there is lotsa water - including the Atlantic Ocean, Indian River, Banana River, several large lagoons, and more! Imagine how each acts upon the small-ish island, along with the winds and temperatures.
While the Atlantic Ocean might not be conducive to dancing, the Reddish Egret finds many of the other waters on Merritt Island to be just perfect for that! There are shots elsewhere on this website catching them dancing in the waters shown to the left. On this trip, I found a different kind of location for an equally entertaining dance!
At this time of year, I was delighted to encounter a number of Roseate Spoonbills - my logo bird! The image at the very top of this collection catches a stunning moment in a series that I shot of this particular bird and a companion heron who kept trying to move in on it.
Onward to nearby Orlando Wetlands where, I will admit, the heat almost got me. This place has changed dramatically since I last visited. A new Education Center has been built and many of the natural paths I wandered have been turned into more formal visit routes. Still, a rich habitat, with much water vegetation and quite a few species to be seen - including this joker of a stork!
One thing I've learned over the years is that when you visit a certain place makes all the difference! And so, on this trip I saw many Roseate Spoonbills and Storks mixing together in a pond - perhaps driven there by the heat. Also, Ibis and ducks. A relief: not so many Egrets!!
It's probably a very good thing that I forgot to stick an extra camera battery in my pocket when I set out to visit Orlando Wetlands. My camera just stopped and I, who was truly feeling the effects of the heat, went back to the sweet A/C of my car!
Fresh the next day I made the turn toward the north and visited one of my former favorites, Apoka Lake Wildlife Drive. This dirt road wanders 11 miles through a variety of habitats. But recently I've been disappointed to find that those pesky touristas, who became prevalent during Covid and honestly couldn't care less about the wildlife, persist - making the visit rather challenging for the rest of us. The usual great richness of species this place used to offer was again absent. I now go back primarily for the great views that can be had of Ospreys. And I did manage to catch one pair - on a very sparse nest And a hawk!!
And so ended my nostalgia circuit in Florida. Unable to resist one more stop, on drive home through South Carolina I stopped at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuges - a rookery place that I like but that sometimes offers an interesting mix of species. Following are a few images captured there - including a Tricolored Heron who just couldn't stop dancing! Most interesting was the Armadillo that caught me by surprise, thus yielding just a blurry photo.
This guy was a real twirler!!
* * * *
This trip, in this season is always the highlight of my photography season. But I turned around pretty quickly this year and took my week-long May vacation on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. While there, I revisited Cypress Wetlands, where I knew the storks would have been replaced by Egrets and other later nesting birds.
Fluffing Tri-Colored Heron
Yawny Turtle
Snowy Egret Chicks
Green Herons
Over at Savannah NWR, the waters were crowded with flowering water lilies and I came across one Anhinga in full mating display who was very pleased to put on a show. And, surprisingly, a single out-of-place Cattle Egret. This is not a habitat where many birds nest - making it an somewhat empty place in May!
Great White Egret Chicks
Empty as it might be at certain times of year, Savannah NWR still remains one of my favorite places just for pure variety of habitat...and all in full view of the bustling port of Savannah, with its many cranes. (I'll spare you that photo.)
* * * *
Rather than sit out the North Carolina summer as I usually do, in July I made a family-related visit to far western NC. Since this area is renowned for numerous and varied waterfalls, and I've been wanting to try waterfall photography for awhile, I planned this trip to include waterfall stops. The heat was peak and (unusually) the mountains were not exempt. So the agenda was quite abbreviated. I managed to visit only two places: Soco Falls, west of Asheville and Yellow Creek Falls near Robbinsville, NC. Let's just say both were challenging for a 79-year old visitor!!
Yellow Creek Falls, Graham Cty, NC
Soco Falls, Ashville NC
Lotsa water out there as we have all discovered as we witnessed the recent, tragic Hurricane Helene events in western NC. Lotsa water means lotsa electricity generation. While there I visited the very high and impressive Fontana Dam.
And was very happy to discover this little patch of lilies just outside my door!
* * * *
What next? A long wait to mid-September when I returned to Hilton Head for my family week. A visit at this time of year always brings plenty of weather worries and surprises. This year, it was the threats that didn't really pan out. So we had a mostly lovely week, with plenty of wind and enough variation to offer interesting beach images. Day 1 of my stay presented the best post-storm beachscapes. That day, I took a lot of photos to try out the camera on my upgraded Apple I-Phone. They yielded this collage:
Royal Terns
Willet
Royal Terns
Post-storm
beachscape
Middle: Plover
Coastal birds are migrating at this time of year. So there were plenty of Royal Terns - one of my favorites. One day, the gulls seemed to be coming through - all varieties. Otherwise, a few Willets, Plovers, and Dunlins. Here are just a few images taken that week.
* * * *
2025 Photography
For me, this year started in the very last days of December 2024! As I like to do periodically I traveled down to Belmont, NC to enjoy and photograph the spectacular lights and wonders at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden. It wasn't TOO cold, so I was able to hang on to that camera for a while...
Year-round, of course, just walking around the campus of Carolina Meadows can bring little surprises. As the year closed, I encountered what amounted to a much larger surprise than usual. As I turned a corner, minding my own business, enjoying the crisp air and approaching sunset ...
In addition to the glorious fountain displays, there was a particular area that was lit up like fire! On the stroll through the red-orange arbors, it was as if one walked through fire!
Well, yes! Fierce as can be - ready to go! At all costs, so very important to protect the quarry...
...which I had absolutely no intention of stealing!!
I stopped dead in my tracks.
And stillness did the trick! For the next 10 minutes, I watched and carefully stole images. Mr. (or Mrs.) Hawk fed peacefully - now understanding that I was not a threat.
Wonderful images - closer than I have ever been to a fully wild hawk.
And then I walked on, not in the least worried that this would be a well fed hawk, fully able to protect its prey.
* * * *
After that ending to 2024, entry into the early months of this year were much more tame! In late January, with the holly bushes chock full of juicy berries, the "flocking" began. A few years ago, at my house, it was robins, robins, robins - making plenty of noise and stripping the bushes clean of berries. Here, this year, it was the Cedar Waxwings coming in droves and growing fatter by the minute!
In February, we had our "pretend" snow that you only saw if you got up pretty early in the morning!! And in March a turtle (oh, whoops, not really...). For real, though, I went down to Jordan Lake - not much bird life, but a gigantic spider web (no spider, of course).
Ok, so now you've figured out that my life is a bit more "sedate" in the first quarter of any year but especially as I grow older. However, there is always the saving grace of the flowers. They do not disappoint and as we progress through the year, you might come to agree with me that 2025 rivaled Covid year 2020 for the beauty of the flowers.
In February and March, the reliable and steadfast reminders that spring is coming... the daffies, crocus and lenten rose...we must give them credit for keeping our spirits up and hopeful! And then, suddenly, the early trees and the colorful blooms begin to pop, too!
But April does eventually come, with its emerging wildlife and its gorgeous floral displays.
At last!! The Martins are back - to discover a whole new set of nesting homes.
And, well, the flowers are quite spectacular this year. They speak for themselves...
* * * *
Next up, my usual May trip to Hilton Head, which also took in a stop at Cypress Wetlands in Port Royal and a quick pass-through at Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. Once a favorite stop, Savannah has become very disappointing since the "restoration" project which, as far as I can tell, simply drove away the birds!
Cypress Wetlands was its usual delight - with LOTS of storks - clearly a thriving species. Multiple "families" camped out right beside each other. But, oh my, I am always reminded of just how truly ugly these little chicks are!!
At most of the places I visit I more often than not encounter a "be back" - the little something that calls me back the next time. At Cypress this year, I saw two - count them two - Little Blue Herons together. Now I've seen plenty of these birds - usually scampering around the marshy edges of water. They can move fast and they fly fast, making it difficult to capture fine images. This day, however, I believe this was a nesting pair who were roosting peaceably together.
At this time of year, Cypress is all about the perpetuation of the species - here are a few shots I caught. Not much blue in this place - green foliage, green water!!
Ha! Ha! The Friends of this preserve know how to recycle!
Once I crossed over from Beaufort to Hilton Head Island, I began to fall out of the photographer mode, so not much new here! But I did relax and enjoy.
It was just after noon and the heat was very high when I arrived at the rookery at Alligator Farm. A zoo, I know, but still one of my favorite places to get sharp, close-up shots of the nests and chicks of roseates, egrets, storks, herons and (if that's your interest) gators, gators, gators. While I had planned to spend the entire afternoon here, I was forced to shorten my photo session and seek the wonderful breezes across the street on the beach at Anastasia State Park.
I enjoy taking what I call "Mutt and Jeff" photos of siblings hatched at considerably different moments. Apparently, egrets (to the right) do commit siblicide, but doesn't seem to be in the cards for this odd pair! The roseate series above suggests that in fact the older sibling showed some behaviors more like tending to the little one.
This topmost branch in the rookery is one of the most coveted perching spots for great white egrets, snowy egrets, storks and roseates. It was long ago, when I first saw this more or less "friendly" competition for space, that I began to formulate my first thoughts about the co-existence of the species...
The nest with this chick was also very high up and I got the immediate impression of a prayer for food - more food!! I had never seen such prominent green skin tones on egret chicks. When I looked it up, turns out that this is characteristic of an African subspecies of the great white egret. So the world wide movements and mixing continue!
Pushing south to the "space coast" - still in terrible heat - my next stop was one of my favorites: Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. On a Saturday morning, I had first to contend with a very large group of bikers (of the noisy, motor variety) who arrived at just the same moment as I. It took about half an hour for them to all straggle through, with their din and dust, before I was able to start my wanderings through the refuge. After the bikers, my first encounter was with a lovely bird I thought was a Willet, but soon discovered to be a Greater Yellowlegs - slightly smaller, with thinner beak and more attractive, I think...
One of the reasons I like this refuge is that it has such varied habitat. Along with the brush and wildflowers and little ponds seen above, there is lotsa water - including the Atlantic Ocean, Indian River, Banana River, several large lagoons, and more! Imagine how each acts upon the small-ish island, along with the winds and temperatures.
While the Atlantic Ocean might not be conducive to dancing, the Reddish Egret finds many of the other waters on Merritt Island to be just perfect for that! There are shots elsewhere on this website catching them dancing in the waters shown to the left. On this trip, I found a different kind of location for an equally entertaining dance!
At this time of year, I was delighted to encounter a number of Roseate Spoonbills - my logo bird! The image at the very top of this collection catches a stunning moment in a series that I shot of this particular bird and a companion heron who kept trying to move in on it.
Onward to nearby Orlando Wetlands where, I will admit, the heat almost got me. This place has changed dramatically since I last visited. A new Education Center has been built and many of the natural paths I wandered have been turned into more formal visit routes. Still, a rich habitat, with much water vegetation and quite a few species to be seen - including this joker of a stork!
One thing I've learned over the years is that when you visit a certain place makes all the difference! And so, on this trip I saw many Roseate Spoonbills and Storks mixing together in a pond - perhaps driven there by the heat. Also, Ibis and ducks. A relief: not so many Egrets!!
It's probably a very good thing that I forgot to stick an extra camera battery in my pocket when I set out to visit Orlando Wetlands. My camera just stopped and I, who was truly feeling the effects of the heat, went back to the sweet A/C of my car!
Fresh the next day I made the turn toward the north and visited one of my former favorites, Apoka Lake Wildlife Drive. This dirt road wanders 11 miles through a variety of habitats. But recently I've been disappointed to find that those pesky touristas, who became prevalent during Covid and honestly couldn't care less about the wildlife, persist - making the visit rather challenging for the rest of us. The usual great richness of species this place used to offer was again absent. I now go back primarily for the great views that can be had of Ospreys. And I did manage to catch one pair - on a very sparse nest And a hawk!!
And so ended my nostalgia circuit in Florida. Unable to resist one more stop, on drive home through South Carolina I stopped at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuges - a rookery place that I like but that sometimes offers an interesting mix of species. Following are a few images captured there - including a Tricolored Heron who just couldn't stop dancing! Most interesting was the Armadillo that caught me by surprise, thus yielding just a blurry photo.
This guy was a real twirler!!
* * * *
This trip, in this season is always the highlight of my photography season. But I turned around pretty quickly this year and took my week-long May vacation on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. While there, I revisited Cypress Wetlands, where I knew the storks would have been replaced by Egrets and other later nesting birds.
Fluffing Tri-Colored Heron
Yawny Turtle
Snowy Egret Chicks
Green Herons
Over at Savannah NWR, the waters were crowded with flowering water lilies and I came across one Anhinga in full mating display who was very pleased to put on a show. And, surprisingly, a single out-of-place Cattle Egret. This is not a habitat where many birds nest - making it an somewhat empty place in May!
Great White Egret Chicks
Empty as it might be at certain times of year, Savannah NWR still remains one of my favorite places just for pure variety of habitat...and all in full view of the bustling port of Savannah, with its many cranes. (I'll spare you that photo.)
* * * *
Rather than sit out the North Carolina summer as I usually do, in July I made a family-related visit to far western NC. Since this area is renowned for numerous and varied waterfalls, and I've been wanting to try waterfall photography for awhile, I planned this trip to include waterfall stops. The heat was peak and (unusually) the mountains were not exempt. So the agenda was quite abbreviated. I managed to visit only two places: Soco Falls, west of Asheville and Yellow Creek Falls near Robbinsville, NC. Let's just say both were challenging for a 79-year old visitor!!
Yellow Creek Falls, Graham Cty, NC
Soco Falls, Ashville NC
Lotsa water out there as we have all discovered as we witnessed the recent, tragic Hurricane Helene events in western NC. Lotsa water means lotsa electricity generation. While there I visited the very high and impressive Fontana Dam.
And was very happy to discover this little patch of lilies just outside my door!
* * * *
What next? A long wait to mid-September when I returned to Hilton Head for my family week. A visit at this time of year always brings plenty of weather worries and surprises. This year, it was the threats that didn't really pan out. So we had a mostly lovely week, with plenty of wind and enough variation to offer interesting beach images. Day 1 of my stay presented the best post-storm beachscapes. That day, I took a lot of photos to try out the camera on my upgraded Apple I-Phone. They yielded this collage:
Royal Terns
Willet
Royal Terns
Post-storm
beachscape
Middle: Plover
Coastal birds are migrating at this time of year. So there were plenty of Royal Terns - one of my favorites. One day, the gulls seemed to be coming through - all varieties. Otherwise, a few Willets, Plovers, and Dunlins. Here are just a few images taken that week.