Been a while since I posted something from the Pacific northwest, so here’s another look at the ochre sea stars that can be found up and down the coast of Olympic National Park in Washington. These sea stars are predatory, preferring to eat mussels, and they are actually quite important to the healthy diversity of their habitat. In their absence, mussels take over almost completely, crowding out other species. This photo was taken well after the sun had gone down and I needed a 25 second exposure in order to have enough light.

Continuing on last week’s theme of depressing stories from the field, I figured why not one more, this time featuring an elk and pine beetles. Pine beetles are killing trees in Rocky Mountain National Park at an alarming rate. Entire mountainsides are now rust colored, rather than the usual green, as a result of the devastation. Many factors are thought to be causing the problem, some natural, some perhaps not — warming yearly temperatures are just one of the culprits. There is certainly cause for concern as the trees disappear, but there are also those who believe that this may be a good thing, clearing the forest of old, weak trees while making way for more diversity and growth in the  future. A parallel has been made with the fires that swept through Yellowstone 20 years ago. At first thought of as a disaster, we now see that it spurred a rich diversity of new habitat and species.

That’s an osprey. That’s a fish. And that’s about all there is to say about this one. Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Texas.

Getting the camera on the ground, or in this case on the ice, always provides a nice perspective, especially for smaller animals. But with these river otters, I was also getting as low as possible in order to get their inevitable shake of the head (and subsequent water spray) against that nice dark background.

This is an eastern newt, otherwise known as a red spotted newt. When young, like this one, it is a bright orange color and called a red eft. For most of its 12 to 15 year long life, it lives in the water, but when in the red eft stage it exists on land. I found this one last spring in New Jersey on a trail while hiking in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

I realize that cardinals are a fairly common bird around these parts (New York) but I had never seen more of them than I did down in southern Texas. Here are just a few of the shots that I took. The first and third were taken in Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, while the middle one was taken at Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park. These are all males. Oddly enough, I didn’t see quite as many of the females around.

As we get into March and April, it’s time for red fox pups to be born. They can be called pups, kits or even sometimes cubs. I found this one a couple of years ago in late May down in Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware.