Great Blue Heron with Great Big Stick
I’ve watched great blue herons nesting before in Venice, Florida, but never saw them grabbing branches as big as the ones they were on this particular day.
Black Oystercatcher, San Simeon, California
Black oystercatchers are a large shorebird and one of my favorites in North American. Not really sure why, but I really like their entirely black feathers, orangish-red beaks, yellow, orange-ringed eyes, and pinkish legs. Nothing flashy, just a good solid, unpretentious bird. I was on a cliff, looking down on this one near San Simeon, California. They nest just above the high tide line of rocky shorelines and prey upon many small invertebrates including mussels, crabs and barnacles. Oddly enough, however, they don’t eat oysters.
Osprey With Fish
I photographed this osprey last month at one of the country’s top birding spots — Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island in Florida. Osprey’s are somewhat unique, being a single species that occurs worldwide (except in Antarctica). They are fish eating raptors, sometimes called sea hawks, and you can see the tail of a fish in this one’s talons.
California Newt
This here is a California newt, also known as an orange bellied newt. These guys are pretty big for newts, growing to 8 inches in length. It was somewhat rare to come across one on land because it’s breeding season and although they are land dwelling for most of the year, they stay in the water from December to early May when they are taking care of business. They also happen to be highly toxic and if ingested can kill you. I made sure not to eat him.
Sea Otter, Moss Landing, California
I had a very productive week over this past Christmas holiday, traveling up and down the central California coast. The elephant seals were just arriving and the young were being born, the harbor seals were active and curious as ever, the tide pooling turned up several creatures I hadn’t seen before, and my personal favorites, the sea otters were doing their sea otter thing.
Cade’s Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
No animals in this one, just a simple country road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. This was early in the morning in a part of the park called Cade’s Cove, an area of open fields that provide one of the best places in the country to view black bears in the wild.
Sunflowers and Badlands
Badlands National Park in South Dakota is one of my favorite places in the US. There’s plenty of wildlife, and also great landscape opportunities pretty much everywhere in the park. This photo was taken late one afternoon just before a rainstorm. The desert sunflowers were in bloom and everywhere along the roadside.
Sandhill Crane, Bosque Del Apache, New Mexico
As anyone who has been to Bosque Del Apache in New Mexico knows, getting shots of sandhill cranes isn’t difficult. With so many cranes, it’s easy to experiment with different exposures/shutter speeds, angles, etc. What I was trying to do with this particular photo was to use a slower shutter speed to capture the blurred movement of the bird in flight.
Atlantic Puffins, Machias Seal Island, Maine/New Brunswick
Here’s another shot from Machias Seal Island off the coast of Maine. I liked the little guy up on the rock trying to get a look at the action below.
Marbled Godwit, Moss Landing, California
This bird is called a marbled godwit. I photographed it just north of Monterey at a place called Elkhorn Slough in the town of Moss Landing. The light was perfect that day and I was able to lay face down on the beach, and place the camera on the ground, to get the lowest angle possible — always my favorite way to photograph birds on the ground and other small animals.