There were quite a few bighorn rams in Yellowstone this weekend. The ewes that I saw, on the other hand, were all just outside of the park. Rams and ewes only come together during mating season. The rest of the year the rams hang out in bachelor herds while the ewes hang out together and tend to the young. This guy was trudging through the snow looking for whatever vegetation he could find.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 340mm) ISO 400, f/4 at 1/2500th of a second

This is the twelfth time or so that I’ve been to Yellowstone — and I’ve still yet to get a usuable shot of a wolf. That’s the way it is with wildlife photography. One day you’re witnessing the rarity of a leopard stalking a pangolin in Africa and the next, you drive around all day in “America’s Serengeti” and don’t come back with a thing. So until I finally get that elusive wolf in the wild, here’s one I took about six years ago in a drive through animal park in South Dakota. As for bighorn and bison, well I got plenty of them over the last few days. Stay tuned for upcoming posts.
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 300mm) ISO 800, f/5 at 1/800th of a second

I’ve posted a few photos of this bobcat before, but none of the wink that it gave me when it first spotted me down on the ground taking its picture. The encountere happened at a place called the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary — a small patch of wilderness just two miles from the hotel I was staying at in downtown Irvine, California.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 1600, f/4 at 1/400th of a second

I had a request for another polar bear today and seeing as it’s about as cold in Brooklyn right now as it was when I was taking photographs up on the subarctic tundra, well, it seemed appropriate. Here’s a male polar bear, standing up to get a better view across the frozen Hudson Bay. Sure, they’re among the most fierce predators on earth, but somehow polar bears just don’t look quite as ferocious when on two legs like this as opposed to all four. Instead they can look more like Peter Griffin or Homer Simpson.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 290mm) ISO 800, f/8 at 1/640th of a second

From late October through February, tens of thousands of monarch butterflies can be found overwintering at the Pismo Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove in central California. They are part of one of nature’s great migrations as they make their way down from Canada. Butterflies west of the Rocky Mountains spend their winters at many locations along the California coast, while those east of the Rockies migrate all the way down to Mexico. At night, the butterflies cluster on tree branches and look like leaves. It’s only when the sun starts to warm up that they open their wings and begin to fly around. The first time I visited the grove I didn’t notice the butterflies at first, mistaking them for bunches of leaves.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 800, f/10 at 1/800th of a second

It was early in the morning down at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware when I saw this red fox trotting along the side of the road with what appears to be a female red-winged blackbird in its mouth. She was heading back to her den where two pups were waiting for their breakfast.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 400, f/5.6 at 1/640th of a second

This cold morning reminds me of another cold morning a few years back when I was in Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico photographing sandhill cranes and snow geese. Each morning the snow geese would blast off en masse from the area’s ponds and lakes and take to the skies in large flocks. I used a slow shutter speed in this shot and panned with the flight of the geese to create blurred motion.
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 400, f/13 at 1/40th of a second

This will be the last post before the holiday break. Seemed appropriate — a couple of polar bears playing in the snow and ice. Hope everyone has a great break. Stay tuned for all new photos in 2014.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/500th of a second

You can never be too careful walking along a waterway while in Florida. This alligator was hunkered down in the grass, silently watching when I hiked past. After my initial surprise, I got down on the grass too — a safe distance away, of course — and let my telephoto lens do the work.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/500th of a second