It's hard to go wrong in Florida - there are so many great nature preserves, beaches, wetlands, etc. I favor the Gulf coast, and typically locate in or around Sarasota, or Ft. Meyers. The shorebirds on Siesta Key (especially the black skimmers) are fabulous at dawn, and there's plenty else to shoot there too (pelicans, herons, egrets, dunlins, sandpipers, etc). Sarasota Audubon maintains Celery Fields, which is packed with a little of everything - limpkins, spoonbills, ibises, eagles, ospreys, etc., etc. Then, just about anywhere outside of town you'll find sandhill cranes and bald eagle nests (there's an online eagle nest locator), egrets, herons, etc. You can find a nice spot to park yourself on a lawn chair along Sarasota Bay, and enjoy dozens of osprey feeding, brown and white pelicans fishing, and dolphins surfacing in the aqua-green water. A little south of Sarasota is Myakka State Park - a wonderful place to visit generally, and also packed with tons of birds and other critters - stilts, limpkins, ibises, spoonbills, etc., feral pigs, deer, otters, and alligators galore. Slightly farther south is Cape Coral, where you can find burrowing owls, which are always fun to watch and photograph. Not far from there is Manatee Park, where you can get so close to these majestic and docile creatures, you can practically touch them. Enjoy!
