Above the clouds

Last week I had the opportunity of a life time, to go on a Wood Stork flight! So what exactly does that mean? It means I got to go on a small 4 person plane (pictured below) with the research tech and our Amazing pilot. The goal of the flight is to look for Wood Stork nest in Naples and surrounding area.

So once we checked in with our pilot and made sure the weather conditions were good we boarded our plane. Once, on the plane we put our head sets on and made sure they were working and away we went. Once we took off we stayed at about 1,000 feet until we reached one of our surveying sites, we then dropped to 500 feet. At this point, the research tech opened his window and with his very fancy camera began taking pictures below, the pilot going back and forth through the area till we got what we needed (seen in the video below).

I got to see a lot of beautiful scenery, such as manatees in the Caloosahatchee River, the coast of Ft.Myers beach down to Bonita Beach. The end result, we saw Wood Storks and their nest! Unfortunately not at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, but nonetheless it is good news. Year after year, there are less nest down in South Florida, so any nest are a good sign.