This is an old one that I took back in 2002 when I was living in my car and drove to Alaska. The place is Katmai National Park, where in mid July the salmon run is in full swing and large numbers of brown bears gather to fatten up before the fall hibernation. This guy kept poking his head under water, hoping for an easy catch.
Delicate Arch is one of the most photographed landscapes in the world, so nothing new here. But regardless of the fact that photographically it may be a cliched image of the national parks system and the American West, it’s still a spectacular place to visit. You can see the arch from a few roadside vantage points in Utah’s Arches National Park, but to get the full experience, a 1.5 mile, moderately strenuous hike is required. I was most recently there over the 4th of July and timed my arrival so that I would reach the arch at sunset. Unfortunately, there were no clouds to light up the sky on that particular night, but the afterglow of twilight and a half moon provided enough visual interest for a few shots.
Seems an awful lot of friends have been traveling to the Cinque Terre region of the Italian Riviera lately so I thought I’d post a shot. I was recently there for the third time when I got this early morning photo of Vernazza, my favorite of the five small fishing villages that make up the Cinque Terre.
I took this photograph of a cabbage white butterfly in Wellfleet, Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago, but it could have been anywhere, as they are the most common and widespread butterfly in the country. And they’re not even native, having been introduced from Europe in the 1860s.
They call this one the common brown lemur. In my estimation a rather pedestrian name for such a fine lemur. Of course, as with all lemurs, it’s from Madagascar.
Not necessarily a great photo technically, but as you can see I was able to capture a roseate spoonbill as he presides over a meeting with representatives of each of the local wading bird species, including white ibis and tri-colored heron, to discuss matters of mutual interest. This was in Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island in Florida.
Alpine ibex are a form of wild goat that live in the Alps. This one is a male, photographed in a captive situation on my recent trip to Italy. Both males and females have horns, but the males are substantially longer, growing more than 3 feet in length. The horns are mainly used for defense against predators like wolves, lynxes, bears and foxes.
Next time you think that humans don’t age gracefully, just be glad you’re not a bearded pig. I’ve posted a few of the young ones in the past, and they’re actually quite good looking. As for the adults… well, you’re looking at one. These guys would follow around the orangutans in Tanjung Puting National Park in Indonesian Borneo, cleaning up food scraps as they went along.
After several days of failing to get any decent views of chimpanzees, we finally came across a tree in a clearing by a river that had about 8 of them getting ready for nightfall. This mother and baby were pretty high up in the tree. I used my longest lens and cropped in quite a bit.
A couple of elephant seals attempting to make a couple of more elephant seals. This one was taken on a deserted stretch of beach near San Simeon, California.