As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I drove up the California coast this past weekend as far north as San Simeon. This is the time of year that the elephant seals are on the beaches in full force. The females are giving birth to the babies they’ve been carrying since last year, the males are fighting for the right to mate again this year, and the juveniles are sort of lost among all the activity. The mother’s are constantly chasing them away from their newborns and the males seem to ignore their presence altogether. Left to his/her own devices, this one was hanging alone up in the dunes and allowed me a close approach with my wide angle lens.

Finally. After years of trying, I got good looks at a bobcat today. This was taken early this morning (yesterday morning by now) in Irvine, California. I had to be in Irvine on Monday for work and decided to fly out early to try and see what I could find over the weekend. I had read about the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, only about 3 miles from the hotel I was staying in. Despite being in the middle of LA’s suburban sprawl to the south, the reserve supposedly harbored the occasional bobcat. Of course, you still needed to be very lucky to see one. I figured I’d take my chances. I went on Saturday morning and barely even saw any birds. I tried a few other wildlife hotspots I had read about in the area and didn’t have any luck at those either. No sense wasting my time, so I decided to drive well up the coast to a place where I knew I’d find plenty of subjects to photograph — the elephant seals north of San Simeon. Upon returning to Irvine on Monday, I decided to check back in on San Joaquin. Still nothing. I’d have to settle for the seals. This morning I got up, checked out of the hotel and started driving to LAX. I was early though, and I had about 45 minutes to spare. One more try. But after the 45 minutes were up I hadn’t snapped a single frame so I turned to head back to the car. And there it was. Then I lost it before getting any shots. Then I saw it again briefly and got a horrible snapshot (not much better than the previous few times I had seen bobcats). This game of cat and mouse — with me as the cat — went on for a while. I would see it, it would see me, it would disappear into the thick vegetation along a ravine before I could get a good look. I eventually decided to start mimicking the bobcat and when it saw me, I headed into the thicket. Maybe it was a coincidence, but this seemed to work and eventually the bobcat felt comfortable enough to go about its business of hunting rabbits and ducks while I watched. I think the other thing that made it comfortable was that I would lay on the ground (something you’re never supposed to do with mountain lions as it’s an indication that you are prey, but with a bobcat no problem). It was when I was down on the ground that it started to stroll toward me, passing only about 10 feet away. As most you you know, I love that low angle of view and I was able to snap off quite a few shots before it passed and eventually leapt about ten feet across a small river and disappeared. I was happy. More posts to come.

Here’s another pine marten from Silver Gate, Montana, just outside the northeast entrance to Yellowstone. There were two of these guys running around. This one grabbed a chunk of icy snow in his mouth and ran off.

Here’s another one from last weekend in Indiana. I was told that because it was such a dry year, there aren’t as many fish in the ponds and the otters have had to keep moving from one body of water to another to find enough to eat. That being said, they certainly seemed to be finding a lot while I was watching.

I came across this barred owl along the side of the highway on Sunday in Red Hills State Park in southern Illinois. Click below to hear what it sounds like:

Barred Owl Call

I had been reading about the white squirrels of Olney, Illinois for a while now and finally made a trip out to see them for myself on Saturday. Several other towns in the US proudly proclaim their resident white squirrels, but none seem to advertise the fact as aggressively as Olney. In fact, the masthead on the town’s official website includes a little circular logo with a white squirrel’s head and the slogan “Home of the White Squirrels.” The same slogan is seen on the sign that welcomes you to town. And on the side of police cars. And on bumper stickers in shop windows. And on signage all over the city park. At first I was skeptical of the hype as I could only find the regular gray guys — but then I finally saw a white one foraging in a resident’s front yard in all its colorless glory. I would eventually see six or so more before leaving town the next morning. I was surprised at how skittish the squirrels were, making it difficult to get shots, but then again maybe that’s because I live in New York where in Union Square they’ll gladly crawl onto your lap if you let them. After hanging around for long enough under a tree in Olney’s City Park, I got the squirrel in these two photos to feel comfortable enough to go about his business while I went about mine. He would repeatedly come down to the ground to grab an acorn before running back up the tree to eat it. There are about 200 white squirrels in Olney — actually albino variants of the common gray squirrel.

Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge in Indiana is one of my favorite places to photograph — a little gem of the National Parks system. This weekend I went back for the 5th time in search of river otters. The otters are never guaranteed and if you do see them, they’re often far off in the middle of one of the many lakes in the refuge. Not this time, as I had my best look at them yet, including this family of three I photographed at the end of the day on Sunday. For the most part, the surface of the lakes are frozen, but the otters poke holes through the ice in areas where it is thin and spend the day fishing, resting on the ice, and making sure the holes don’t freeze over. I got tons of shots, so more on these guys in upcoming posts.

Here’s a close up of the young bull moose I saw just outside the entrance to Yellowstone in Silver Gate, Montana. You can see how deep the snow was already in late December. The areas surrounding Yellowstone get about 10 feet of snow a year, but due to the park’s unique geographic positioning, it can get up to 50 feet a year.

Due to weather conditions I wasn’t able to get to the more thermal areas of  Yellowstone. That being said, Soda Butte Creek in the Lamar Valley always had a bit of steam coming off the surface of the water and I was able to get a few landscape shots of bison grazing, like this one here just after sunset.

A quick break from Yellowstone to check back in on the polar bears.

The reason mid October to mid November is the best time to go to northern Canada to observe polar bears is because they are all waiting around for the ice to freeze on the Hudson Bay so that they can go hunt seals. In the meantime, they’ll do anything to kill time, including rolling around in a pile of dead grass, like this guy here, providing plenty of photo opportunities.