ORLANDO \u2014 \u201cPlease don\u2019t change your pose right now,\u201d implores photographer Dallas Gadberry to his subject, who for the moment is cooperating for the camera. But this isn\u2019t a human subject he\u2019s dealing with; rather, it\u2019s a black vulture with its wings spread in the \u201choraltic pose\u201d to warm its body in the sun.<\/p>\n
This vulture is one of more than 120 bird species that Gadberry, a Florida native, has cataloged during his extensive travels throughout the state. In short social media episodes he started earlier this year, the wildlife photographer aims to capture around 330 \u201cannually occurring\u201d species of Florida\u2019s avian residents.<\/p>\n
Between Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, his 120,000 social media followers tune in regularly to see the latest installment of \u201cCapturing All of Florida\u2019s Birds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t just want footage of them as an ID. I wanted them doing things \u2014 eating, hunting and their behaviors,\u201d Gadberry, 32, said during a visit to Orlando Wetlands Park. \u201cNinety percent of the time, birds aren\u2019t really doing much. It\u2019s a test of your patience, which is what I\u2019ve had to learn as I\u2019ve been doing this series.\u201d<\/p>\n
The series began when the career photographer started to feel burnout from the busy schedule of freelance photography. Although his passion has always been photography, he needed a hobby that wasn\u2019t associated with work and something he could just go out and do for himself, which ultimately led him to capturing wildlife and starting this series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have to ask anybody or look for clients. It was just something, if I was feeling overwhelmed, that I could just go out and do,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s when I got kind of obsessed with this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first episode, which came out in late December of last year, takes place at Circle B Bar Reserve, a wildlife hotspot near Gadberry\u2019s home in Lakeland. Slow-motion video shows his first six subjects: a tricolored heron, common gallinules, an osprey, an anhinga, a blue-gray gnatcatcher and a palm warbler.<\/p>\n
On his next visit, Gadberry got lucky and filmed a resting barred owl in his first few minutes, then a belted kingfisher, a purple gallinule and a little blue heron. All of these are captured using his Nikon Z8 and 100-400mm lens, usually set on a sturdy tripod with a fluid head.<\/p>\n
Each video showcases Gadberry\u2019s unique vlogging style, which includes a 360 camera mounted close to his face for an extreme angle that distorts his features and includes commentary as he searches for birds.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people recognize me just by the 360 camera on my head,\u201d he said. \u201cFirst they\u2019ll either see the headset on me or second, they\u2019ll recognize me from my voice.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Orlando area, the filmmaker visited Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive to see wading birds and gators, Orlando Wetlands Park \u2014 where he saw spoonbills, a green heron, a red-shouldered hawk and woodstorks \u2014 and Deltona\u2019s Lyonia Preserve, where Gadberry dedicated an episode to the endemic Florida scrub-jay.<\/p>\n
Episode 10, which focused on North America\u2019s rarest heron, was the one that moved the needle for Gadberry\u2019s growing social media presence. The video racked up 117,000 likes and more than 15,000 shares on Instagram.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reddish egret basically changed my life because that episode did so well,\u201d he said. \u201cEpisode 10 was such a success. That bird basically changed my life. It made me feel like this is something that I could maybe do full-time in the future. It gave me that hope as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to his regular episodes of \u201cCapturing All of Florida\u2019s Birds,\u201d Gadberry has started sharing occasional minute-long \u201cBird on the Street\u201d videos that focus on a single bird. The first episode focused on burrowing owls in Cape Coral, while the second highlighted one of Gadberry\u2019s favorite birds of prey, the snail kite.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn average, it\u2019s about 20 different shots that I need of a bird. I like them to be around a minute. That takes quite a bit of time,\u201d he said. \u201cHow do you do a \u2018Bird on the Street\u2019 of a snail kite if you didn\u2019t get it eating a snail?\u201d<\/p>\n
It takes a lot of time to support this passion project, with around 8 hours of editing required per video and countless hours of shooting. It also takes money to fund the travel, which comes from the full-time freelance career Gadberry maintains in addition to collecting bird footage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fun, but it can also get expensive with gas. If it needs to be a multi-day, like going down to Fort Myers, I can\u2019t drive up and down in one day, so I\u2019ll do an Airbnb for a night,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m trying to be consistent with this challenge to keep content coming out, but at the same time, it does cost quite a bit of money. I\u2019m not really monetizing. Social media platforms pay like breadcrumbs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, he finds the effort worthwhile for the educational content he gets to share with his growing community of fans and birders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started this because I love it. You have to be passionate about it, whatever you do, because you\u2019ll get burnt out so quick trying to read into your metrics and trying to figure it all out,\u201d Gadberry said. \u201cThe community has already grown to something that I never imagined. The only way to keep building the community is to keep educating, vlogging and being a personality. That\u2019s what I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO \u2014 \u201cPlease don\u2019t change your pose right now,\u201d implores photographer Dallas Gadberry to his subject, who for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[48963,1684,209,1209,150622,1563,118967,28,897,14604,7154,130807,15412,144875,3445,139,141,140,15988,150623,110,4571,41662],"class_list":["post-372980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-americas","tag-animals","tag-cape-coral","tag-culture","tag-entertainment-and-the-arts","tag-environment","tag-environmental","tag-florida","tag-fort-myers","tag-hunting","tag-lakeland","tag-life-and-society","tag-natural-resources","tag-noindex","tag-north-america","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-photography","tag-social-and-governance","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-wildlife-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}