Paul,
Thanks for the comments.

PWW wrote:

About the Rookery; You were there last week. Late February is not quite
prime time for the Venice Rookery. So that might be part of the reason for
the light activity. Plus, I have seen years where it is slow and years where
the trees have been nearly destroyed by all the nesting. And there is a
natural cycle of ebb and flow of birds in Rookeries to think about. But the
main reason, for the lack of birds think is that is still early in the
season.
While I've only been going to the the Venice rookery for a couple of
years, I've been in Jan., Feb, March, and April. The birds have been
a similar density, but different (more anhingas as the season goes on).
But this trip I encountered more locals and several independently
on different days said I should have been there 5 or more years ago.
Each explained about construction destroying surrounding habitat
(off the present grounds) as well as threats to take some of the current
land for other things, ranging from tall buildings to a
veterans memorial. The local Audubon society successfully fended
of building on the site, but the building around it continues.

Personally, I like the present density. You can get nice clean images
without other birds in the background. Even now it is sometimes
difficult to get positioned right to get a good background, but there are
enough clean possibilities, that you can simply choose a different
target.

AFIK, the good shooting Rookeries are far and few between. What is so good
about the known ones is the birds are acclimated to the people so we don't
disturb the natural behaviors of the birds. And thusly they allow us to come
very close. I used to actively search out new Rookeries in Florida and I do
know a few, but access, shooting range, nest height and other variables make
almost all of them pretty inhospitable to bird photographers.

There used to be another nice Rookery in Sarasota (on private property), but
they took out the alligator that was in the pond, because they feared it
might attack some of their calves. Guess what happened. The Rookery died
off. Alligators are necessary for a good Rookery. They protect the Rookery
islands from Raccoons and other nest predators. I hope they did not take any
gators from the Venice Rookery.

That's an interesting observation. I saw 2 alligators at Venice this
trip, one last year (even got images of the alligator eating a young egret).

Roger