A great gray owl glides through a clearing in the forest, searching for its next meal. This was taken earlier this year in northern Minnesota. The late-day light was bringing out the orange bark and shoots of the tamarak pines that are characteristic of Minnesota’s north woods. Nikon D500 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/1250th of a second.
This bird was a great find on my last trip to Panama. There are over 200 species of antbirds. As the name would suggest, they eat a lot of ants. They are rainforest birds that spend most of their time on or near the ground. This is the ocellated antbird, characterized by the large, bare blue patch around the eye. Both males and females look the same, with the females being only slightly smaller. Conditions were dark in the thick forest, but the bird stayed still just long enough for me to get a sharp(ish) shot at 1/50th of a second.Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 1600, f/4 at 1/50th of a second.
An endangered red-footed tortoise stops to pose for the camera. From what I could tell, these guys are the most celebrated species on the Caribbean island of St. Barts. I was on a decidedly non-wildlife trip with my wife and friends, but where there is wildlife, there is a way. Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 310mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/800th of a second.
A couple of young wild burros playing at Box Springs Mountain Park in Moreno Valley, California. This small population of wild burros are federally protected. They were first brought to the area by gold miners in the late 1800s and early 1900s but were left behind when the miners failed to discover gold. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 330mm), ISO 400, f/7.1 at 1/320th of a second.
Tree monitors are big lizards. Very big. I’d say this guy was somewhere between four and five feet long. He/she clung to that tree, not moving but keeping an eye on us as we slowly drifted by in a boat. Photographed in Khlong Saeng in Thailand. Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 350mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/400th of a second.
A few weeks back I posted what I thought was a lappet-faced vulture. It was actually a white-headed vulture, as one of my subscribers pointed out. Here’s another one (I think… pretty sure, right?). Regardless of species, this guy would like you to kindly worship him. Photographed on the Masai Mara of Kenya. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 400, f/8 at 1/400th of a second.
These guys are very small — only about an inch in length. They’re mostly spotted on the ground in leaf litter, but they also climb trees. In fact, mother’s will climb to the top of tall rainforest trees to deposit their tadpoles in the water of bromeliad plants growing from branches near the canopy. They are also called blue jeans frogs, as you can see from those legs. I photographed this one in central Costa Rica. Nikon D200 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 190 with Canon 500D close up filter) ISO 100, f/5 at 1/6th of a second.
Occasionally I see a pileated woodpecker in my yard in Connecticut. On my recent trip to Florida, I saw them all over the place in the Corkscrew Swamp area. These are the largest woodpeckers in the United States (assuming you consider the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct) and third largest in the world. Nikon D500 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/250th of a second.
A baby stump-tailed macaque peers through the thick vegetation, near Kaeng Krachan National Park on the Malay Peninsula of Thailand. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 280mm) ISO 1600, f/5.6 at 1/250th of a second.
Here’s another one from Carcass Island in the Falklands. A blackish oystercatcher. Not much to say here, it’s an oystercatcher and it’s, well, blackish. Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/1000th of a second.