Black Skimmer, Merritt Island, Florida
This is a black skimmer that I photographed on Merritt Island in Florida. When feeding, they fly just above the water, using their lower beak to skim the surface for food.
Young Black-Crested Macaque, Indonesia
I spent a couple of hours with the black-crested macaques as they moved through the forest. The little ones, like this guy, were curious at first, but before long forgot I was there.
Agouti, Costa Rica
This is an agouti photographed in Costa Rica. Not quite squirrel, not quite rat — a little of both but quite a bit larger.
Great Blue Heron with Great Big Stick
I’ve watched great blue herons nesting before in Venice, Florida, but never saw them grabbing branches as big as the ones they were on this particular day.
Strawberry Poison Dart Frog, Costa Rica
Here’s another one inspired by the Discovery Channel’s “Life” series. In the episode “Challenges of Life,” they highlight the strawberry poison dart frog and the Herculean effort the mother goes through to ensure that her young survive. She carries each of her tadpoles on her back, one by one, from the rainforest floor to the tops of trees — big, jungle trees — in search of suitable nurseries (in small pools of water that form in bromeliad leaves). Each tadpole needs its own nursery so that they don’t eat each other. Then the mother goes from nursery to nursery dropping unfertilized eggs into the water for the tadpoles to eat (apparently it’s good eatin’ for a young tadpole and they need more than just one, so the mother must continually return to each tree and nursery to drop another, and then another). She pretty much is traveling constantly while the tadpoles are growing. The first time I was in Costa Rica I saw this happening with a tadpole on the mother’s back but wasn’t able to get any good shots. Here’s a strawberry poison dart frog from my second trip to Costa Rica. There are many different varieties and colorations of this frog — this one being the appropriately named “blue jeans” morph.
Black Oystercatcher, San Simeon, California
Black oystercatchers are a large shorebird and one of my favorites in North American. Not really sure why, but I really like their entirely black feathers, orangish-red beaks, yellow, orange-ringed eyes, and pinkish legs. Nothing flashy, just a good solid, unpretentious bird. I was on a cliff, looking down on this one near San Simeon, California. They nest just above the high tide line of rocky shorelines and prey upon many small invertebrates including mussels, crabs and barnacles. Oddly enough, however, they don’t eat oysters.
Tufted Capuchin, Bolivia
Here’s an old one that I decided to send again after watching the primates episode of “Life” last night on Discovery Channel. This is a tufted capuchin monkey, also known as a brown capuchin, from Madidi National Park in Bolivia. Capuchins are generally considered to be the most intelligent of the new world monkeys and are especially noted for their use of tools. If you saw the episode, you’d have seen one of these guys cracking open palm nuts by using a rock as a hammer and a larger flat stone as an anvil.
Agile Gibbon, Indonesian Borneo
I usually don’t post on Saturday but I’m testing out a few things on the blog. Apparently a lot of gmail, yahoo and hotmail subscribers aren’t receiving posts. Hopefully this goes through. Another agile gibbon from Borneo. This one really shows just how long these guy’s arms are.
Osprey With Fish
I photographed this osprey last month at one of the country’s top birding spots — Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island in Florida. Osprey’s are somewhat unique, being a single species that occurs worldwide (except in Antarctica). They are fish eating raptors, sometimes called sea hawks, and you can see the tail of a fish in this one’s talons.
Young Elephant Handlers, Indonesia
They start the training early to be an elephant handler in Sumatra. These kids are born into the business and grow up with the young elephants. I’m usually not a trained/domesticated animal guy, but as I mentioned earlier, there definitely seems to be a strong relationship and respect between the people of Tangkahan and their elephants.