Felt like a good night for a dove. In this case a Galápagos dove. Photographed on Genovesa Island. This species is found only in the Galápagos archipelago, but is fairly common in its limited range. Nikon D700 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 330mm) ISO 400, f/5 at 1/640th of a second.
Only about 4,500 Baird’s tapirs remain in the wild, a thousand of them in Costa Rica where I took this photo. It is the largest mammal in Central America and the threat to its survival is twofold — both habit loss and poaching. I was able to get some pretty good looks at this rather large, but difficult to see animal. By sitting still for hours I got very close and most of my shots were with my wide angle lens, but for this exposure, I put on my longer lens for a ground-level portrait. There wasn’t a lot of light in the deep forest so I had to jack up the ISO for a useable shutter speed. Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 98mm) ISO 3200, f/2.8 at 1/160th of a second.
After four months of trying, one of the local bears finally cooperated and walked past my camera trap last night — taking a few photos of himself while I was getting ready for bed. I’m pretty sure this is the same adult male that I posted a few weeks ago. He looked much bigger in that photo because it was taken with a 500mm lens as opposed to this shot with a 17mm lens. Perspective from focal length can really change the appearance of the subject. My guess is that he was about two feet from the camera in this image.Nikon D810 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 17mm) ISO 500, f/8 at 1/125th of a second, Cognisys camera box, trail monitor and flash units.
The granular poison frog is also known as the green jeans frog (for fairly obvious reasons). It’s found only in Costa Rica and Panama in a relatively small range. Habitat loss in that range has landed the frog on the vulnerable to extinction list. I found this one near a waterfall in Pavones, Costa Rica. Nikon D200 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (with Nikon 1.7x teleconverter attached for 340mm) ISO 100, f/8 at 6 seconds.
It’s called a wolf. Its nickname is fox-on-stilts. But it’s neither a wolf nor a fox. It’s the only species in the genus Chrysocyon, meaning golden dog. I only saw two of them while in Brazil — this being the one of the two that allowed me photo opps. Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 95mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/400th of a second.
Yellow-necked spurfowl are a common sight in Samburu National Reserve in Kenya. Also known as francolins, they are often referred to as African chickens for their habit of always running out of the way as safari vehicles pass by. This image gives a good look at that yellow neck. Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 360mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/320th of a second.
I photographed this Tasmanian pademelon early in the morning before the sun had broken the horizon. I used a bit of flash to add to the faint light of dawn. Pademelons are one of the smallest macropods — the family of marsupials that kangaroos and wallabies also belong to. Photographed on Maria Island, just off the coast of Tasmania. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 260mm) ISO 800, f/8 at 1/160th of a second, Nikon SB-900 flash.
A southern stingray drifts across the top of the seagrass at Shark Ray Alley Marine Reserve in Belize. These guys have quite a range in coastal Atlantic waters, from southern Brazil in the south on up to New Jersey in the north. Sony RX100V at 8.8mm (24mm equivalent) with wide angle wet lens and Fantasea Underwater Housing, ISO 250, f/5.6 at 1/250th of a second.
It was very late in the day and the sun had already set when I spotted this snowy owl flying right toward me and then over my head to what I assume was its night-time perch. I was shooting manual mode and thought there was no way the exposure would work given the light and my camera’s settings. But the dark background contrasted with the white owl ended up working nicely. Shot at Boundary Bay in southern British Columbia, Canada several years back. Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 1600, f/4 at 1/400th of a second.
This one is a rarity. The brown hyena, or as it’s also called, the strandwolf. I’ve only seen two. The other was in the burrow below this guy. They can only be found in the southern tip of Africa, mainly in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. I took this photo in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana. The light was very low, much darker than the picture indicates and I was forced to use a high ISO of 6400 and wide aperture to squeeze out just enough light for the shot. Moments after I released the shutter, both disappeared into the burrow. Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens, ISO 6400, f/2.8 at 1/40th of a second.