Elephant Seal Mother and Pup
Here’s another from my day at the elephant seal nursery. It seemed as if every adult female was alongside a newborn pup.
White Necked Heron
White necked herons are a fairly common sight along the rivers of Brazil’s Pantanal region. I was in a small boat, floating quietly past while this one was searching for fish.
Toad
Toads may fall short in the glamour department, but they make up for it in personality. This handsome little specimen was rustling around in the leaf litter along the side of a trail in Baxter State Park in Maine.
Squirrel Monkey Eating Palm Fruits
In all my travels, Tiskita Lodge in Pavones, Costa Rica was one of my favorite places to stay. Down near the Panama border, it’s not easy to get to, but well worth the effort once you do. I probably saw a greater variety of wildlife just walking around the grounds of the lodge than I’ve seen anywhere else. I was there for four days, and each afternoon a small troop of squirrel monkeys would make an appearance just outside my room to feed on the various fruiting trees. They were just one of the many species that I could literally photograph from the hammock on my front porch.
Japanese Macaques
With all the devastation we’ve been seeing and reading about in Japan, I had been wondering about the snow monkeys that I visited two springs ago up near Nagano. Being well away from the coast and up in the mountains, I figured the tsunami wouldn’t have been a factor, but the earthquake did hit the Nagano area, and regions of high thermal activity are always a concern. Thankfully, the live cam that sits above the Jigokudani hot spring (plus a quick google search) indicates that life is going on as usual for the monkeys.
Pine Marten Behind Tree
Here’s another of the pine martens that I photographed over the Christmas break in Silver Gate, Montana, just outside of Yellowstone. There were two scurrying around and they were pretty quick, so difficult to photograph. Every now and again, I’d see a head pop up somewhere and then dart away as soon as I put the camera to my eye. In this instance, I was able to get the shot before the pine marten disappeared again.
Red Kangaroo Mother and Joey
Time for some random kangaroo facts to enrich everyone’s lives. A female is called a flyer. The males are called either a boomer or a buck. And the young, of course, are called joeys. These two here, a mother red kangaroo and her joey, are in a place called Flinders Ranges National Park in South Australia.
Yet Another River Otter
I know I’ve been posting a lot of river otters lately, but I keep finding new ones that I like. The otters work hard at keeping a few holes in the ice open throughout the cold winter. The holes also make it an easy time of year to photograph them because (with only three or four holes in a given lake) you always know where they are going to surface.
Spot Flanked Poison Dart Frog
This little guy is called a spot flanked poison dart frog. The photograph was taken in Madidi National Park in the Bolivian Amazon. This is a very small frog and I needed my macro setup to get the shot. Other than the name, I really don’t know too much about this frog and not much is written about them online.
Ochre Sea Stars
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.