Besides deer, the only other mammals that I saw in Cuyahoga Valley National Park last weekend were a couple of beavers. Beavers are always difficult to photograph because not only are they skittish, they’re also crepuscular. What does crepuscular mean, you ask? Simply that they are active during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk. It was about 6:30 AM when I took this shot and the sun was still below the horizon. Due to the low light I had to crank the ISO up to 3200. There was just enough light, however, to record the reflected colors of the changing leaves on the surface of the water.

The Cuyahoga Valley in Ohio is an interesting national park given the human presence that exists within its borders — not exactly what you’d expect if your vision of a national park is Yosemite or Yellowstone. The purpose of the park, however, is to preserve and reclaim the rural landscape surrounding the Cuyahoga River. It does this beautifully with gently rolling hills, waterfalls, caves, lush farmlands and a twisting floodplain that mix seamlessly with the quaint residential patches that evoke a more Rockwellian America. The leaves were peaking this past weekend in many areas of the park, including these hills behind Kendall Lake.

I had to be in Ohio for work on Thursday and Friday so I figured I’d spend the weekend and explore Cuyahoga National Park. There wasn’t too much going on, but I did see quite a few birds, including this male wood duck. Wood ducks get their name because they like to nest in cavities in trees. The males are one of the most colorful duck species in North America, while the females have a more uniformly brown plumage.

Another shot in the red fox series from Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware from several springs ago. The light was great that morning, I was in perfect position, and the foxes were cool with me being there. All in all a great morning in America.

I’m usually all about trying to get precise focus on my animal subjects, but sometimes I go for something a little more abstract. This shot was taken a few years back on Sanibel Island in Florida at the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge (strange name, I know, but one of the best places in the country to photograph birds). The sun had completely set and twilight was fading fast. It was too dark to freeze the action of this roseate spoonbill coming in for a landing so I used the slower shutter speed to my advantage and panned my camera and lens downward with the motion of the bird.

This is a California newt that I came across one day while hiking in the woods outside of San Francisco. They are pretty big for newts and can grow to about eight inches in length. They also happen to be highly toxic if ingested. Fortunately, I have no desire to ingest California, or any other species of newt.

This little guy is an eastern mud turtle. I spotted him one day in Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. Mud turtles are semi aquatic, spending the cold months on land (under ground) and the warmer months in the water.

This black bear sow appeared to be posing for the camera just before climbing up the tree to join her pair of year-old cubs. I took this photo a couple of years ago in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.

Not much happening up at Rocky Mountain National Park this weekend — just the way it goes sometimes — but other than an occasional elk or deer, I did come across a few creatures, including this golden-mantled ground squirrel. These ground squirrels look a lot like chipmunks, but they are much larger and don’t have stripes on their heads. This is the time of year that they are fattening up for hibernation and as you can see, this guy was quite the little pudge.