I did have one day on my Italy trip where I was able to photograph some wildlife. This goat-antelope species is called a chamois and is native to the mountains of Europe. We were hiking in a place called Gran Paradiso National Park in the Italian Alps when we saw several of these guys. I didn’t have my long lens with me, but was able to get fairly close to a few chamois including this one.
The poppies were in full bloom and everywhere throughout France and Italy. This one was taken in the last few minutes of twilight, just outside the town of Montalcino in Tuscany, Italy.
This is the Il Vittoriano monument in Rome. I set up low with a medium long lens and used a slow shutter to get the streaks of headlights passing by.
Just back from Europe where Shelley and I drove from Paris to Rome in a little over a week. Other than a few hoofed creatures in the Alps that I was lucky enough to photograph, it was clearly not a wildlife trip. The landscapes, however, were another story — especially in Tuscany. This was taken from the balcony of our room in the medieval hill town of Montalcino. Vineyards surround Montalcino and the local red, Brunello di Montalcino is considered one of the best in the country.
This will be the last post for about a week as I’m off on vacation tomorrow. As for the photo, it was taken in the Badlands a couple years back very early in the morning. I was out before sunrise to photograph prairie dogs when I saw this, and another pronghorn moving in and out of the desert sunflowers along the roadside.
Here’s another shot of a dwarf cuscus from Sulawesi in Indonesia. Not much bigger than a squirrel, these animals are marsupials and the largest member of the possum family. When first discovered, the cuscus was thought to be a monkey because of the way it moves through the trees with its prehensile tail.
Antelope Valley, about an hour and a half drive northeast of Los Angeles, is known as one of the best places in the country to view spring wildflowers. In particular, the California poppies. I arrived about a week or so late for the peak bloom, so decided to focus on individual flowers, rather than landscapes, to see what might be creeping around. I was photographing a beetle when I looked over and saw this caterpillar emerging from the bottom of one of the poppies.
When it wasn’t raining in Sumatra, which was rare, there were tons of butterflies along the river. Here, a couple of different species were flying around together. The one on the right is called a Lesser Jay while the one on the left is a Malayan zebra.
I know… nothing exotic about a raccoon, but I’m an equal opportunity wildlife appreciator. At least this guy is keeping it real and isn’t a garbage raccoon like the ones most of you probably have in your backyards. He/she was searching for food (crabs, perhaps) in the swampy marsh areas around Merritt Island in Florida.
This is a greater roadrunner (not really sure what the Looney Tunes guys were looking at when they created the cartoon). Roadrunners can fly, but usually don’t, preferring to run across the ground at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour. They got there name due to their habit of emerging from the underbrush along roadsides and running parallel to cars before darting back to safety. I ended up with a chest full of cactus spines after chasing this guy around for about 20 minutes, continually dropping to the ground for eye level shots.