I was just finishing breakfast when I saw these two polar bears through the dining room window of the lodge.  I quickly grabbed my equipment and hustled on out to a side patio to record the action. Turns out I could have taken my time as they kept at it for a good 20 minutes or so. They were obviously play fighting on the ice, but at times it really did look like they were out on a giant dance floor.

Tule elk are the smallest subspecies of elk in North America. They live only in a few small pockets of California. One of the most reliable places to see them is at Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco. It was getting near the end of the day when I came across a small herd of females, including this young lady who was obviously reacting to a particularly funny joke that I told her.

Here’s another one from the late spring trip to Yellowstone — this one not looking quite so springlike. I had never seen so many grizzly bears in the park. They seemed to be everywhere, digging through the snow looking for food. I watched this guy as he walked for about 15 minutes along the river and then proceeded to swim across and climb up the mountain on the other side.

The northwest entrance to Yellowstone National Park is a great place to spot bighorn sheep. The vast majority of Yellowstone is in Wyoming, but Gardiner Canyon where I took this photo is in Montana (the park’s boundaries also spill into a bit of eastern Idaho). I was there this spring and several recently born bighorn lambs were running up and down the steep walls of the canyon. It’s amazing how fearless they are at such a young age.

Here’s a landing sequence of a razorbill on Machias Seal Island off the coast of Maine. These birds are the largest members of the auk family and they will only come ashore in order to breed. Presumably, razorbills choose only one partner for life, and females lay only one egg per year. These shots were taken earlier this year when I went up to Maine to photograph Atlantic puffins — a species that the razorbills nest along side of.

They can be found pretty much anywhere in this country, but it’s still exciting every time I see a red fox. This one was running past me on a snow covered road in Yellowstone National Park. At times they can be very tolerant of people and this guy barely acknowledged my presence.

A lot of people have been asking me about depth of field and f-stops lately, so here’s a good example of what your camera’s aperture can do. The first shot was at a wide aperture of f/5.6, while the second, was at f/18. Ordinarily on a landscape shot like this, I’d opt for the smaller aperture of f/18 in order to get edge to edge sharpness, but on this example I actually think I like the first one better because of its odd sense of motion. These are blue columbines, the state flower of Colorado. The location was in the northern part of the state up by the Wyoming border.

Here’s another of the black bear cubs that I saw at a rehabilitation center in South Dakota. Black bears can be any shade of black, brown, cinnamon, or even white. This guy didn’t seem too enthused to be getting his picture taken.

Of course, wherever there are fornicating grasshoppers, there’s sure to be a nice romantic double rainbow nearby. This was taken Sunday night in the Fakahatchee Strand area of Big Cypress National Preserve in southwestern Florida.

I had to be in Florida on Friday for work so I figured I’d stay the weekend and search for newly hatched baby alligators, Florida panthers and the state’s spectacular birdlife. What I ended up with were fornicating grasshoppers. These three inch lovers are called eastern Lubber grasshoppers, or, as they are more commonly known, Florida giant orange grasshoppers.  They move quite awkwardly and slowly and can only jump short distances. They are, however, toxic to most predators and their bright coloration acts as a warning sign.