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Mar
31
Shot of the Month – March 2017
Here we see an Osprey doing what it does best — catching a fish. This was one of the first images I ever captured of an osprey in action. I have to confess however that this is not a completely “wild” setting. Let me explain.
Osprey Buffet
A couple of years ago while living in Vermont I heard about ospreys that regularly visited a fish hatchery that was about an hour from where I lived. The hatchery had an assortment of holding tanks that held fish from uber small to quite big. The biggest fish, rainbow trout, in this case, were held in an outdoor pond. For an osprey, this was like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel.
Initially, the osprey parents would stop by to catch a couple of fish each day to feed themselves and the kids. When the chicks were old enough to fly the parents would bring them to this pond to practice fishing. I heard about the spectacle and spent a couple of weekends sitting by the pond to see what I could catch. It was interesting watching the parents circling above as they called out to their offspring, seeming to implore them to give it a go. It was easy to distinguish the parents from the newbies — the parents would circle briefly and dive in with great confidence and efficiency. The kids, uh, not so much. They would start a dive and then abort. Come in for another try and pull up at the last second as they got close to the water. Eventually, after numerous false starts, they would dive in, occasionally catching a meal.
As for me, I had a grand ole time. I had a front-row seat and could see up close and personal how an osprey earned a living.
Ospreys are true piscivores — fish make up about 99% of their diet. Given their love of fish, osprey nests are usually found within 12 miles of a body of water. They typically fly about 30 to 100 feet above the water surface and use their exceptional eyesight to spot a meal. Osprey tend to prefer shallow bodies of water since it can only plunge about three feet under the water’s surface with its feet-first dives. These hawks are pretty good at what they do and usually catch a fish in 1 out of 4 tries. It takes an experienced adult about 12 minutes of hunting before making a catch.
The fish is oriented headfirst to minimize wind resistance
The osprey’s feet are highly adapted to facilitate holding on to its slippery catch. Osprey can shift one outer toe to the back if needed to better grasp a fish. No other birds of prey can do that. Their feet also have barbed pads on the soles and the talons have backward-facing scales — all adaptions to help maintain a firm grip. To facilitate an efficient flight back to the nest or the preferred dining locale, an osprey will orient the fish headfirst to minimize wind resistance!
As they say, you can teach a man to fish, but he still won’t be as good as an osprey. Or something like that.
Until next month…
Here is a great video showing how osprey hunt:
Nikon D4S, Nikon 600 mm, f/8, 1/2000 s, ISO 800, -0.5 EV
Feb
28
Shot of the Month – February 2017
This month we visit with the natural world’s “Unbreakable” star – the coyote. I photographed this fine-looking fellow in Yellowstone NP. For the uninitiated, the film “Unbreakable” is an American film about a man who learns that he has supernatural powers and basically, he can’t be killed. The Coyote, at least as a species, seems to have similar powers. (I recommend the film, if you haven’t seen it)
In the last two hundred years we have done a wonderful job of wiping out many of the continent’s top mammals. Fifty million bison were reduced to about twelve thousand. The grey wolf used to inhabit the entire United States but is now largely extinct from most of the country. The North American cougar was extirpated in the eastern half of the country by the beginning of the 20th century.
And we have been working overtime to kill off the coyote. We kill a coyote every minute in the United States. I’ll repeat that morsel, in case you blinked.
We kill a coyote every minute in the United States. In other words, we kill about 500,000 coyotes each year.
Coyote Killing Contest (Source)
We are very determined to wipe this animal out. In the 1920s the US government created the Eradication Methods Laboratory whose sole job was to kill predators that we didn’t like. Congress passed a bill in 1931 allocating $10 million to the lab to launch a poison campaign. From 1947 to 1965 the agency killed about 7 million coyotes using blanket poisoning, sometimes putting out up to 4 million poison baits at a time. Since the 1970s this job was handed over to the Wildlife Services Agency, which is part of the Department of Interior. Since 2000 the agency has killed 2 million mammals (coyotes, wolves, and cougars) and 15 million birds. More recently the government uses airplanes to shoot about 80,000 coyotes per year on behalf of the livestock industry. Many states have a bounty on coyotes and you can pretty much kill coyotes at will in many places. In some states, they have contests to see who can kill the most coyotes in one day.
Normally, this is the part where I tell you how dire the situation is for the coyote. How they are highly endangered and near extinction. Not this time, my friends. As I mentioned, the coyote is unbreakable.
In fact, the coyote is THRIVING. Never been better, thanks for asking!
How is that possible??!!
The coyote’s superpower is adaptability. They are masters of exploiting the changes in the environment caused by humans. When the settlers arrived coyotes only lived on the western plains but once we killed off the wolves everywhere else the coyotes began to migrate into new territories and they now occupy most of the continent.
Coyotes historically were smaller than wolves and couldn’t compete with them. In the 1800’s the wolf population was at a low density due to human persecution and wolves had a difficult time finding a mate. As coyotes migrated east the wolves took the next best option and mated with their smaller “cousin”. As a result, the northeastern coyote-wolf hybrids were bigger, stronger, and able to kill larger game. This allowed coyotes in the east to be able to kill deer, something their smaller relatives in the west are unable to do.
Coyotes have also moved into urban centers and seem to love life in New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles, to name a few of their favorite haunts. Turns out that cities are pretty safe because people are not shooting, trapping, or poisoning them there. The coyotes adapted their diet to eat squirrels, household pets and discarded fast food. In rural America coyotes live for about 2 to 3 years while in the city a coyote can live for 12 to 13 years!
Under normal conditions, coyotes have 5-6 pups in a litter. However, when the coyotes feel persecuted they increase their litter size to 12 to 16 pups. You can kill off 70% of coyotes one year, but by the next summer, their numbers will have recovered. They use howls and yipping to create a kind of census of the coyote population. If their howls are not answered by other packs, it triggers an autogenic response that produces larger litters. (Source)
Coyotes also developed a fission-fissure adaption to help them survive. If life is going well, coyotes will live and hunt in packs. However, if they are persecuted, say by wolves or humans, then coyotes will abandon pack life and scatter across the landscape in singles or pairs. For example, the poison campaign of the 1970s really helped scatter coyotes across the country.
There you have it, another sad tale that makes me embarrassed and ashamed to be a human. But congrats to the coyote for stickin’ it to the man. I’m rooting for ya!
Check out Project Coyote to learn how you can get involved to stop the slaughter of coyotes and MANY other animals.
For more outrage, click here:
National Geographic article on the Wildlife Services Agency
Washington Post article on the Wildlife Services Agency
I got much of my information for this post from these great articles. Highly recommended:
How the Most Hated Animal in America Outwitted Us All (National Geographic article)
Rise of the coyote: The new top dog (Nature Journal article)
Until next month…..
Nikon D500, Nikon 600mm f/4 lens @ f/8, 1/2000 s, ISO 400, EV +0.667
Jan
31
Shot of the Month – January 2017
As you may recall from an earlier post, I am a BIG fan of owls so it is an exciting day when I get to add a new owl species to my portfolio. Let me introduce the Short-eared Owl (SEO), as captured here in this lovely winter scene that I found about an hour north of Seattle. Upon moving to Washington State I learned that Short-eared Owls (SEOs) winter over in my new state to escape the cold of northern Canada. Accordingly, I have been spending many a chilly weekend out looking for these aerial acrobats.
Owls can be very hard to photograph as they are usually most active at night. SEOs are one of the easier owls to view, relatively speaking, in that they often hunt during the day. Bless them.
The Short-eared Owl prefers open terrain and can be found in prairies, coastal grasslands, meadows, savannas, tundra, marshes, and other low-vegetation habitats.
These owls specialize in hunting voles and other rodents. The owl usually flies just a few feet off the ground as it scans for a meal — its flight can be highly erratic
and undulating. As it listens and looks for prey it may suddenly bank to one side or another, or slam on its air brakes to drop to the ground feet first to grab its victim. Sometimes it will hover over a spot as it waits for an opportunity to pounce.
Imagine a large moth flying over a field and you will have a sense of its herky-jerky flying style. As a photographer, I can tell you that trying to capture an image of an SEO in flight is one of the most difficult types of photography I have tried to do. I will be tracking it, tracking it, just about ready to release the shutter, and then, poof, the bird vanishes from the viewfinder. This happens A LOT.
On a typical day, I will arrive at sunrise and take up a position in the field. And then I wait. As the sun rises, and the voles and mice become more active, the SEOs suddenly appear from the ether. I have seen as many as seven SEOs working a large field at the same time. The owls crisscross their way over the terrain in sortie after sortie as they look for prey. It is an amazing scene to behold though it must be a rather terrifying experience if you are a vole.
Bad day for the vole…
The airspace above these fields will soon fall quiet as the owls begin to migrate back north for mating season which starts in March. I imagine that spring can’t come soon enough for the voles — a few months respite from the constant onslaught from those malevolent, murderous moths.
Until next month…
Nikon D4S, Nikon 600mm f/4, 1/1600 s, ISO 1600, +0.5 EV
Jan
07
2016 was a year of transition — we moved across the country from Vermont to Seattle, Washington and we (Nicky and I) both took on new jobs. Between moving and career transition I did not have as much time for photography. We did manage to make two trips to Yellowstone NP (once in the Fall, and once in the Winter) while most other photographic forays were weekend trips exploring our new state. Four of my favorite images were shot in Washington while the other six images were shot in Yellowstone. Click on image below to see it bigger (highly recommended).
The Top Ten for 2016:
#1 Bobcat
One of my earliest forays in Washington State allowed me to see my first bobcat in the wild and produced this amazing view in the Hoh Rainforest. You can read the full story behind getting the shot here.
#2 Marmot
During the summer we visited Mt. Rainier several weekends in a row to try and capture the summer wildflowers at their peak. I didn’t have much luck on that front though I did get this nice shot of a marmot. And in my defense, there are 4 types of wild flowers in this scene!
#3 Great Gray Owl
I spent three magical hours alone with this Great Gray Owl in a forest in Yellowstone NP. Wow.
#4 Bighorn Sheep
On the fall trip to Yellowstone I had my first sighting of a male Bighorn Sheep. Our guide said that this may have been the biggest ram he had ever seen during his 35 years as a guide.
#5 Yellowstone Landscape
A nice sunset in Yellowstone captured using the HDR technique. If HDR is jibberish to you, learn more here.
#6 Robin
I have to admit that I never imagined that an image of a robin would make my top-of-the-year list, but I really like this scene of a robin in a holly tree. Not bad for backyard photography.
#7 Short-eared Owl
I never had much luck in finding Short-eared Owls (SEOs) on the east coast. Turns out that many owls winter over in Washington state. You now know how my winters will be spent…..This shot of an SEO taking off in the snow is my favorite capture so far.
#8 Coyote
Our winter trip to Yellowstone provided my first opportunity at a decent image of a coyote.
#9 Bison
The star attraction of our winter trip to Yellowstone was the bison. I loved the abstract nature of this shot.
#10 Pronghorn in a snow storm
Probably my favorite shot from our winter trip to Yellowstone. One day one, five minutes from the gate at the end of the day as were leaving the park we found this herd of Pronghorn caught in a sudden flurry of snow.
Wishing you a great 2017!
Dec
31
Shot of the Month – December 2016
One look at this image and most of us shudder with cold in sympathy for this poor beast. Some might even clamor — “Help that poor animal, he must be freezing to death.” I am a real wimp when it comes to the cold and I normally walk around the house wearing multiple layers and a fleece — I seem to always be cold. So, upon seeing this bison in Yellowstone NP, standing in deep snow and generally covered in the white stuff, I felt quite despondent for him.
Well, dear friends, the nature science folks tell us that we can all relax. Bison have evolved over millions of years to deal with this type of weather. Our human concepts of what is cold simply don’t really apply in the bison world. When I photographed this bison I was standing in waist-deep snow and it was about 16° Fahrenheit. There was also a gusty wind that would swirl about causing mini blizzards every few minutes such that I would lose sight of this massive beast for a few seconds at a time. In Yellowstone, a temperature of 16° F is considered “moderate” — almost balmy conditions considering that temperatures can easily drop down to -30° F and beyond.
I have been told by park officials that bison don’t feel the cold until it reaches about -40° F. Nope, not a typo. In the winter a bison will grow a coat of woolly underfur with coarse guard hairs that protects them from the elements. This rich coat has 8 times the number of hair follicles compared to cattle. The fur is thickest on the bison’s head, on the front of their body and on their forelegs. When the wind blows us humans will often turn our backs to the wind to avoid the worst of it. Bison have no need for such contortions; given their full fur defense they are quite content to face directly into the onslaught. The bison swings its massive head into the snow to clear the way so that it can eat the grass that lies beneath — the body is so well insulated that the snow does not melt as you can see in this photo.
So, now you know, the next time you see what looks like a poor, freezing bison, you can rest assured that he is most likely doing just fine and is rather, just chillin.
Until next month….michael
🙂
Nikon D4S, Nikon 600mm, 1.4 x TC (effective 850mm), f/9, 1/640 s, +1 EV, ISO 500
Nov
30
Shot of the Month – November 2016
For someone who doesn’t believe in climate change then karma would dictate that said person be reincarnated as a Pika. But before we get to the hot topic at hand, what the heck is a Pika you might ask. I think Pika is an acronym for Probably the most Incredibly Kute Animal. Though, I might be wrong on that.
The Pika is an incredibly cuddly and cute fur ball found amongst the highest mountain ecosystems around the world. “Fur ball” is pretty accurate as a Pika’s body is quite round and she doesn’t have a tail. There are about 30 species of Pika in the world (mainly Asia, North America, and parts of Eastern Europe) with one species found in the United States. The American Pika can be found in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, California, and New Mexico. The fine lass (could be a chap, I have no way of knowing) above was photographed in Yellowstone NP.
The Pika is well adapted to surviving in alpine mountain ecosystems which are typically windswept, treeless, and frigid. The alpine zone only represents about 5 percent of the planet’s surface and thanks to climate change, this habitat is disappearing fast. As the mountain tops warm the vegetation changes, the snowpack melts and new predators and pests move in. Most mountain habitats in the Western US have warmed by at least 1 degree F in the last hundred years. In the next hundred years, the temperatures are expected to rise by another 4.5 to 14 degrees.
Pikas literally cannot take the heat. Expose a Pika to temperatures above 78 degrees and she will die within six hours. Yes, really.
In Oregon and Nevada Pikas have disappeared from 1/3 of their previously known habitat. Since the early 1900’s the Pika has disappeared from 8 of the 25 U.S. mountain ranges where they previously lived. Pikas keep climbing higher but once they reach the top of the mountains, they can’t go any higher to escape the deadly heat.
Expect to see the Pika on the Endangered Species list soon. And given current trends, the Pika may become the first known species in the US to go extinct from climate change.
As they say, karma is a b****.
Until next month….m
Nikon D4S, Nikon 600mm w 1.4x TC (@ 850mm), 1/750s, f/5.6, ISO 720
Oct
31
Shot of the Month – October 2016
Last month’s image was a cacophony of color amongst the trees. This month’s image captures the quiet stillness of shades of gray by the waters edge. I love how the image transitions from pure white in the upper left corner through shades of gray to deep black in the lower right corner of the image. On this sunless morning in Vermont the lake was quiet and there was no wildlife to be found. While drifting along in my kayak, with not much to do, I came upon this spider’s web and decided to experiment and see what I could come up with. While shooting this image my main focus was on trying to capture the glistening dew drops on the spider’s lair. I paddled around and around trying every position imaginable until I found the angle that worked best. The image was shot with a point-and-shoot camera (Canon G1X).
Converting the photo to black and white was rather easy given that there was virtually no color to be found in the scene. Other than the two corners, most of the image is filled with shades of gray.
Turns out that creating gray can be a rather complicated affair. In the art world painters create different shades of gray by mixing black and white paint in different proportions. Want a darker gray? Add more black. Lighter gray? Add more white. You get the idea. A mixture of just black and white creates a “neutral gray.” Add a bit of yellow, orange or red and you can add a warm cast and create a “warm gray.” Add a bit of green, blue, or violet and you can get a “cool gray.”
In the world of print the CMYK color model is used — cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. All colors are made from a combination of these four colors. To make gray you add equal amounts of cyan, magenta and yellow.
TV and computer screens use a RGB color model – red, green and blue. Red, green and blue light at full intensity on the black screen makes white; by lowering the intensity one can create shades of gray.
On this particular day mother nature made graduations of gray by blocking out the sun with a heavy shroud of fog with a dab of dew thrown in for good measure.
I have to say, I am a big fan of her work……
Until next month…
Canon Powershot G1 X, @ 17.2 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 s, ISO 200,
Sep
30
Shot of the Month – September 2016
If you dig color then autumn in New England is the place to be. For a few glorious weeks, your entire world becomes a crazed canvas of exploding greens, yellows, oranges, and reds. As a photographer, I have often struggled to capture the scale and audacity of the landscapes that Mother Nature majestically painted each year. The colors in the image never seemed to quite capture the radiance and intensity that assaulted (in the most pleasant manner, mind you) my eye. The scale was always far too pedestrian — either too close, too far, or just never quite right to inspire and capture the sense of awe I felt in the field.
However, last fall I experimented with a motion blur technique that I read about in one of my photography magazines — the Vertical Pan. For the first time, I created images that conveyed the cacophony of color that enveloped me on my walks through the woods. Realism is nice, but these images much better reflect the imprint these experiences have left on my being.
There are three parts to this technique:
Find a Scene that Strikes Your Fancy
Get out there and walk around and look for scenes with bold colors, or great contrast in texture, or some cool shaped tree trunks, or a nice mix of colors…or…or…
Low Shutter Speed
The slower the shutter speed, the greater the blur and the more abstract the image. I experimented with shutter speeds that ranged from 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/10, 1/20, and 1/30th of a second. There is no right speed. It depends on the scene before you and the look that you are going for. To lower the shutter speed you can set your ISO at its minimum and then close your aperture till you get the shutter speed that you want. On bright days, you may need to use a polarizing filter to help slow things down, or you can use a neutral density filter to reduce the light to your camera sensor to get slower shutter speeds.
Move the Camera
Point your camera at the scene of choice and lock the focus. Then, as you press the shutter release button to expose the image tilt the camera down with a smooth motion. Again, you will need to experiment to find the right mix. You can tilt slowly, quickly, or somewhere in between. Sometimes I begin the pan before I release the shutter button. You can pan down (my usual preference), up, or to the side.
There are endless possibilities. Keep playing with the shutter speeds as you vary your movement of the camera. Most will look like junk. Delete and move on.
Others will be, well, magical.
(I recommend viewing the images below on the biggest screen you can find. And once you click on one, you can move through the series easily by using your right or left arrow button.)
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- See the falling leaf??!!
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- Horizontal Pan
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- Horizontal Pan
Until next month…..m
Nikon D4S, Nikkor 28-105mm (@ 105mm), f/29, 1/8 s, ISO 400
Aug
31
Shot of the Month – August 2016
Snakes tend not to be a crowd favorite but nature’s beauty comes in many sizes and shapes. Ok, while these Common Garter Snakes (CGS), photographed in Baxter State Park in Maine are not adorable, nor cuddly, I think that they do have a certain charisma and geometric charm about them.
If you get out in the woods, even a little bit, there is a good chance that you have seen a garter snake. They are by far the most common snake in North America and can be found from Canada to Florida, from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast, and most places in between. The CGS is quite adaptable and can live in forests, fields, prairies, streams, wetlands, meadows, marshes, and ponds – it is often found near water. These snakes are quite harmless though some species of garter snake have a mild neurotoxic venom that may help to immobilize its prey, but its bite is harmless to humans.
Common garter snakes are thin and tend to be about 22 inches in length and rarely get longer than four feet in length. Given their relative small size the CGS is often preyed upon by large fish, hawks, crows, bears, turtles, birds, foxes, squirrels, raccoons, bullfrogs, and some other snakes.
I know that some people get very afraid when they see a snake. Trust me, this fellow is not a threat. His main prey is, are you ready for this? – earthworms. Yep, this snake is a viscous killer of, 
earthworms. See, now don’t you feel a bit silly? CGS are also very good swimmers and will hunt small fish, frogs, tadpoles, leeches, insects, slugs, and crayfish. They will also hunt for small mammals and birds when possible.
From the photo, you might deduce that all CGS are small, brown, striped snakes. Alas, life is not that simple. Turns out that there is tremendous variability in the appearance of the CGS and you may find them adorned in green, blue, yellow, gold, red, orange, brown (as above), and black. The CGS is just one out of thirty species of garter snakes that exist, not to mention the various sub-species, so figuring out which is which can be tricky. Check local reference guides for the state where you saw the snake for more precision on the colors typically found there.
So the next time you are in the woods and you see one of these fellas, take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy one of nature’s lesser-appreciated beauties.
Until next month…..m
Nikon D4S, Nikon 70-200mm @ 200mm, f/11, 1/60 s, ISO 400
Jul
31
Shot of the Month – July 2016
It was over in an instant. This “Awwwwwl”-inspiring shot of an Atlantic Loon chick riding on its parent’s back was taken in 1/1,000th of a second. Sounds easy and pretty painless. But not so fast Speed Racer — it also took me four years to get my kayak in the right spot to capture this scene.
Why so long you ask? Let’s break it down.
Atlantic Loons, aka Common Loons, spend the spring and summer on lakes and ponds in Canada and Northern US where they breed and raise the next generation of aquatic birds. During the first 2 weeks of life, the tiny chicks can often be found riding on the backs of the adults. Besides being incredibly cute, this behavior helps promote the survival of the wee birds. When so small the chicks are very buoyant and they have a hard time maneuvering in the water on their own. Keeping the chicks off the water also helps avoid the dangers from below, such as from large-mouth bass, and avoid danger from above in the form of Bald Eagles (Source). I have often seen a Bald Eagle circle above a loon family waiting for a chance to pick off a chick. Also during the first two weeks of life, the loon chicks are not able to effectively regulate their body heat and they lose a lot of heat through their feet when in the water. Riding on a parent’s back helps keep them warm and if necessary the chicks can seek shelter under a protective wing (Source), as seen below:
So my challenge was to be in the right place at the right time to capture a behavior that only takes place during just a part of a two-week window each year. And in good light, of course.
In year 1 I had just moved to Vermont and I didn’t know anything about loons, their behavior, where to find them, etc. By the time I discovered my first mating pair, it was too late in the summer and the chicks were too big for back riding. Perhaps next year.
In year 2 I returned to the same pond and monitored the breeding pair as they built their nest and incubated the eggs. For some reason the eggs failed and no chicks. Sad. Maybe next year.
By year 3 I was now tracking loons at two different ponds. In pond #1 the nest was flooded during a thunderstorm and the eggs were lost. At the second pond, I arrived too late (working for a living often gets in the way of photography) and I missed the behavior. Well, there is always next year…..
In year 4 I was tracking loons in three different ponds. In site #1 the nest failed. In site #2 the pair was successful and I managed to catch a couple of days of the behavior and captured a few good shots. In site #3 I found the chicks on what must have been day 2 or day 3 of their young lives. Bingo!! For the next 10 days, I returned to the pond before sunrise each morning and spent a few hours with the loon family before heading off to work.
It was a magical two weeks as I had the chance to glimpse through a fleeting window of opportunity and share in the loons’ first weeks of life. The experience was definitely a highlight of my time living in New England!
And the image was well worth the 126,144,000.001 second wait.
Until next month….m
Nikon D4S, Nikon 600 mm, 1.4 TC (effective 850mm), f/8, 1/1000 s, ISO 2500, +0.333 EV, handheld from a kayak
