Here’s another one from Botswana. This time a leopard, just hanging out watching the sun go down over the Linyanti plains along the northern border with Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Shortly after I took this shot and the sun set, the leopard climbed down from the tree and headed out on a hunt.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 280mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/1250th of a second
I photographed five species of penguin in the Falkland Islands, with the Magellanics being the only burrowers. Their burrows were evenly spaced out across hillsides, with quick access to the coastline, and you could see penguin heads, or entire bodies, here and there poking out of the landscape.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 82mm) ISO 1600, f/2.8 at 1/640th of a second
This mischievous looking little guy is a slender mongoose, photographed in Botswana. They are described as opportunistic carnivores. Meaning, they’ll take what they can get. Most of their diet is made up of insects, but they’ll also eat lizards, rodents, snakes, birds, amphibians, and fruit when available. They have a well earned reputation for taking down venomous snakes, although, this doesn’t account for a significant portion of their diet.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/1250th of a second
I’ve mentioned before that the oryx is believed to be the antelope that the unicorn is based on. The unicorn creator apparently thought that one horn would be cooler than two. There are four different species of oryx, all large antelopes that range throughout dryer parts of Africa. This one, the gemsbok, was photographed in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve of Botswana.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 330mm) ISO 400, f/5.6 at 1/1600th of a second
I couldn’t find much info on the white-banded awl butterfly, but my guide got pretty excited when we found this one in Kaeng Krachan National Park in Thailand. He said that it was a very rare find, although not quite as rare as the emerald awlet that I posted back in November. I spent quite a bit of time on the ground with my macro lens before the awl finally landed close enough for some proper shots. I’m not sure what the behavior was all about, but it kept emitting that green fluid from its proboscis and then presumably sucking it back up again.
Nikon D500 with Nikkor 105 macro lens, ISO 800, f/5 at 1/160th of a second
Ugly, yes. Charming, definitely. But you’ll have to take my word on the charming part. These guys are sort of the garbage collectors of the rainforest. They follow orangutans around and collect the food scraps that the red ape’s toss aside. If was fun to watch them, in all their ungainly charisma, as they fumbled their way through the forest. And that beard. Just spectacular.
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 190mm) ISO 800, f/2.8 at 1/200th of a second
Hyenas are interesting in that they are genetically more closely related to felines, but behaviorally more like canines. Similar to canines, they are non-arboreal (don’t climb trees) and they hunt by running to catch prey with their teeth rather than their claws. There are other similarities in behavior as well, but ultimately hyenas are neither cats nor dogs but rather their own unique family in the order carnivora. But when they roll around on the ground like this girl was doing in the Masai Mara of Kenya, they certainly look like a few dogs — and cats — that I’ve known in my day.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 360mm) ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/1000th of a second
One of the best things about our recent move from Brooklyn to Scarsdale has been the ability to find life forms other than people, pigeons and rats. Actually, there were plenty of birds in the city too, but nice to be able see such a variety in my own backyard. Below are just a few of the species that stopped by this weekend.
Tufted Titmouse
Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/200th of a second
Northern Cardinal
Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/400th of a second
Black-Capped Chickadee
Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/200th of a second
Hairy Woodpecker
Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 290mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/2500th of a second
White-Throated Sparrow
Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/2500th of a second
Although they may look like it, pikas are not rodents. They are members of the lagomorpha order which includes rabbits and hares. They live high in rocky alpine regions of North America and are helpful to scientific study of climate change because of their extreme sensitivity to temperature. In fact, they can not tolerate highs in the mid 70s for more than six hours or they will die. Due to this, they are known as an indicator species, and studying their movements tells us much about the changing conditions of where they live. In recent years they’ve been migrating to higher and higher altitudes seeking colder weather. For this reason, I think of them as an ominous metaphor for our own species — if they keep climbing higher in search of a healthy place to exist, they’ll eventually run out of room. This little guy — sounding an alarm call — was photographed in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
Nikon D200 with Nikkor 600mm f/5.6 manual focus lens, ISO 400, f/8 at 1/250th of a second
I met this young red fox several years back at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. He/she had one sibling and they were playing around with each other having a good old time while their mother was out hunting for breakfast.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 400, f/6.3 at 1/250th of a second