I spotted this mustang and her young foal in Monument Valley last year. Also known as wild horses, or feral horses, mustangs in the American west are descendants of horses brought over from Spain by early explorers. Most were brought to either Mexico or Florida. Eventually a few escaped or were stolen by native Americans and they rapidly spread throughout the west.
In honor of my mother’s birthday today, I figured I’d post a crane of another sort. This sandhill crane is from Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. Every fall, thousands of these cranes, as well as snow geese, flock to the open fields and shallow lakes in the area.
This was another of the sea otters that I recently photographed at Elkhorn Slough in California. As I mentioned before, it’s rare to get them on land like this. I kind of liked the sequence here, as the otter appears to be pretty happy about something.
I thought this golden-fronted woodpecker was a particularly handsome bird. In the US these guys live only in Texas, and a small portion of southern Oklahoma. I photographed this one in Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge near Rio Hondo, Texas. Other than that, there’s not much more to say about them so I’ll attempt to educate instead by tossing out the fact that a group of woodpeckers can be called a descent, a drumming or a gatling. Now go forth and use this knowledge as you see fit.
Every night when I get on my computer to post an image I think to myself, why not a duck today. But then I send a monkey, or a bear or a frog. Ducks just don’t seem that exciting when compared to their fellow creatures. Today, however, I’m going to stick to my guns and give ducks their due. These two are northern pintails and they were photographed at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico last year. For a little more excitement, check out the sound file of their call.
Feral hogs live throughout Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Texas. These are wild, not domesticated, swine but they aren’t indigenous to the Americas. It’s believed that they were brought over from Europe sometime in the mid 15th century. In Texas and other parts of the southwest, they compete with native peccaries for habitat. This attractive young lady was with a group of about twelve, including a few of her little piglets.
This photo of a bighorn ram was taken over the Christmas break in Yellowstone National Park. There were two of them together kicking at the snow, hoping to uncover some grass to eat. Apparently this guy wasn’t too happy with what he was finding so he took off through the snow.
When I was in California a couple of weeks ago, I visited Elkhorn Slough, one of my favorite spots between San Francisco and Monterey. This is an almost can’t miss location to observe sea otters — and almost always, they are in the water. It’s rare to catch one on land. I crawled over the sand very slowly and quite a distance to photograph this one. It didn’t seem bothered at all by my presence, and it even crept closer to me a couple of times as the tide rose. As you can see, unlike the river otters that I’ve been posting lately, sea otters generally have a much lighter head and neck than the rest of their body. They also happen to have the densest fur of any animal on earth.
