In Review - June 2023
Well, 2023 is already half over. I’m stunned at how fast time is flying by, and how quickly we are working through another year. It feels like yesterday I was getting ready to start the Birds of Delmarva Project and sharing it with you all!
Which, the Birds of Delmarva project is also where we’ll start this month’s edition of In Review! At first, June didn’t seem like it would be that productive of a month for the project - through the 15th of the month, there were only five new entries into the list.
Then, over the last four to five days of June, there was a sudden flurry of action with eleven other birds captured for a total of 16 new entries for the month, including the White Ibis seen to the left.
Three of those sixteen birds captured in June were photographed in the West Ocean City Nature Park - a new spot I found while slowly working my way to a real estate shoot in Berlin.
This park isn’t very large, or at least it didn’t seem like it from what I saw during my brief time there. It has a few trails through some open space and others that go through a wooded area similar to what you might find if you walk through parts of Cape Henlopen State Park.
If you’re ever nearby, I definitely recommend looking it up and checking it out!
Other than that, the month was pretty slow and I spent some time relaxing. After the amount of real estate shoots I had in April and May, the rest and relaxation was a welcome change of pace.
The slow time also allowed me to spend some time working on some other aspects of the photography business that I hope to grow and add to my portfolio over the next few months.
June’s photo of the month is the one seen above of what I think is a Diamondback Terrapin (I’m no reptile/turtle expert, so please forgive me if that is an incorrect ID), taken along the Burton’s Island Trail in Delaware Seashore State Park.
I wouldn’t call it my best work ever, but it takes the spot of my favorite photo of the month because I normally don’t see any wildlife when I’m out on trails aside from birds - or the horses at Assateague, but I expect to see them when I go. It was sitting in the middle of the trail as I was wrapping up the walk, and at first it didn’t even register as a turtle. As I got closer, it clicked so I backed up since I only had my telephoto lens on me, and snapped a shot or two before leaving it continue on its way.
Seeing something like this was definitely a welcome change of pace from the usual birds that I’m photographing. Plus, it was much more cooperative than the birds tend to be, as it just sat there in the trail letting me do my thing.
Looking ahead, there is much more excitement coming up this year. Soon I’ll be putting some posts out about the 2024 calendar - one to decide the subject matter, and the other to select the monthly images - and hopefully they will be available for pre-order sometime in late July or early August. I’ve also got some other new items I’m thinking about doing, so keep an eye out for them as well!
Finally, I know a few people on Facebook have expressed interest in a book for the Birds of Delmarva Project, so I wanted to share that I am working on a few things to accommodate that as well! The first is going to be a set of four mini-books called Zines, which will focus solely on the images of the birds. They will focus on only the first 100 birds captured as part of the project, and each will have 25 images. The second thing is a more comprehensive book that won’t be available until sometime in 2024 - this book will be much more detailed than the Zines, including information like where the bird was photographed, facts about the birds, etc. It will feature more than 100 birds since as of writing this post I’ve photographed 89 unique species so far (or at least this is the goal). I’ll go more in-depth on each of these as they are released and am incredibly thankful for the recommendation and support!
Thank you all so much for taking the time to read all of this and for your continued support. It means the world, and I hope the images you see help put a smile on your face, and those of your friends as well.
Here’s to the next adventure, and see you out there!
- Tyler
If you liked this blog post, here is some other content you may like:
FOLLOW TYLER SMILEY PHOTOGRAPHY ON SOCIAL MEDIA