This is one of the many white-tailed deer that has walked past my backyard camera trap over the last few years. She showed up in time to capture the sun rising in the background. I see these guys nearly every night when I take the dog out for his nightly walk before bed. With my headlamp on, I usually see one or more sets of eyes shining back at me from the woods surrounding our house. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 20mm lens, ISO 500, f/14 at 1/250th of a second, Cognisys camera box, trail monitor and remote flash units.

This one goes back a few years when I visited Yellowstone at the beginning of the fall season. The bachelor herds were still high in the alpine tundra while the ewes and their lambs were at lower elevations. These two posed for a few nice portraits before getting back to grazing. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 380mm) ISO 2000, f/4 at 1/400th of a second.

Yesterday I posted an opossum that came by my fallen-tree camera trap set up. Here’s one when a few bears came by. It’s usually disappointing when I see a bear or bobcat with the head just out of frame, but sometimes it works. In this image, the focus is very clearly on the claws, and the bear in the back added a bit of depth. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 20mm) ISO 500, f/14 at 1/160th of a second, Cognisys camera box, trail monitor and remote flash units.

In the fall and winter of 2020, I had a camera trap set up on a fallen ash tree in the woods behind my house. Raccoons and opossums regularly crossed over it and I was able to experiment with the lighting, capturing quite a few shots like this where the main light was behind the animal. It’s been a couple years, I think I need to try that log again. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 20mm) ISO 500, f/7.1 at 15 seconds, Cognisys camera box, trail monitor and remote flash units.

This is an old one from back in 2008. I was driving down the California coast from San Francisco to Los Angles and stopped off at Año Nuevo State Park to see what I could find. It was first thing in the morning and this elephant seal had the beach to himself, waiting for females to arrive for the yearly mating and birthing season which takes place from December through March. Since then I have spent many hours photographing both northern elephant seals in California, as well as their larger cousins, the southern elephant seals down in the Falkland Islands. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 35mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/250th of a second.

Saw these two ladies strolling along the side of the road recently. Seemed an appropriate post for today (well, technically tomorrow). Have a great holiday everyone and see you back here next week. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 6400, f/5.6 at 1/500th of a second.

I photographed this garter snake in my backyard a few summers ago. The snake had just swallowed a toad and was moving very slowly, allowing me a close approach with my macro lens. Snakes use their forked tongues to collect chemical information from two different locations at once. This helps with navigation — in sort of a 3D kind of way — when looking for food, a mate and whatever else snakes are into these days. Nikon D850 with Nikkor 105mm macro lens, ISO 800, f/7.1 at 1/640th of a second.

It’s that time of year again when great grey owls start getting active in northern Minnesota. I’ve visited the last few years and am thinking about another trip out soon. This was taken in December of 2021 after the tamarack trees had turned a bright orange. Great greys become most active at dawn and dusk, hunting in clearings in the northern forests. Nikon D500 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/1600 of a second.

It’s been a few months since a bear strolled past one of my camera traps. This beauty, either a female or young male, stopped by Sunday afternoon. Nice to get the blue sky and last remaining leaves still clinging to the trees. Most of the action this year has been at night so the diurnal setting was a pleasant surprise. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 19mm) ISO 500, f/14 at 1/200th of a second, Cognisys camera box, trail monitor and three remote flash units.

I captured this image of an eastern striped skunk with a three-flash camera trap setup. The main flash is on the ground behind the log providing the strong backlighting of the whiskers. There’s actually a smaller log behind the visible log, which the skunks, raccoons and opossums occasionally use to get from one side of our back yard to another. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 20mm) ISO 500, f/11 at 20 seconds, Cognisys camera box, trail monitor and remote flash units.