I have to admit that every once in a while I just get lucky. The following photograph of a pair of dancing western grebes is one of those situations. I was photographing waterfowl on a small lake in northern Idaho from my floating blind, when I noticed a single grebe off in the distance. Since I did not have many good images of this species I started to slowly work my way towards this bird. As I began to get closer, the bird started to call, worried that perhaps I was causing it stress I stopped, and continued to watch the bird through the peephole in my blind. Then I noticed a second grebe swimming into view from behind some reeds. The two birds slowly swam toward each other and then suddenly, without any preamble, the pair rose up and began rushing across the water in their courtship dance. Purely as a reflex I dove behind my camera and swung the floating blind and camera toward the pair, as I swung around I simultaneously opened the lens aperture up to f4 (knowing that I would need as much shutter speed as I could get to stop the action). As soon as the birds appeared in my viewfinder I held down the shutter button letting the motor-drive fire 8 frames per second while the birds rushed across the water. The whole thing lasted maybe five seconds from beginning to end.  I couldn’t believe my luck, I had always wanted to see this courtship display, and to witness it from my floating blind, right at the bird’s eye-level, what an incredible treat. My hands were shaking with adrenaline as I nervously checked the back of the camera to see if I had gotten anything usable. To say that I was overjoyed to see that I had a few good frames would be an understatement.

Lately it seems I have been photographing a lot of faces. Here are a few of my recent favorites.

These first couple are from a recent trip to Yellowstone, where I shot bighorn sheep and bison.

Next we have some bat face images that I made recently. This first image is of the aptly named leaf-nosed bat.

Next is a shot of a vampire bat, in the standard mouth open, showing those scary teeth pose. While it may look as if the teeth are hollow (in order to suck your blood). Vampire bats really only use their razor sharp teeth to make a painless incision (almost never on the neck). Once this incision is made the bat feeds by lapping up the blood with its tongue. As the bat laps up the blood it is also treating the wound with an anticoagulant called draculin which is found in vampire bat’s saliva. This anticoagulant keeps the blood flowing by preventing clotting, allowing the bat more time to feed. The bat’s leaf-shaped nose has evolved to be able to detect where the blood is flowing closest to the skin on it’s prey, this helps the bat decide where best to bite. 

During my last trip out west I was able to spend a few days in Yellowstone. This was the earliest I had ever been in the park (mid-April). In fact they were just starting to reopen the roads in the park. The park is different every time I go, but the changes from season to season are of course more dramatic. I am usually in the park in the fall. At that time of year I rarely see bear because most of them are in the high country feeding on pine nuts, trying to put on weight for hibernation. But in the early spring they are just coming out of hibernation, are very hungry, and can be found down in the low country feeding on the carcasses of animals that have died during the winter, as well as anything else they can find. I saw bear every day in fact one day I found six different bears, four grizzly and two black bear.

Here are some images I was able to make of a grizzly bear that I was able to spend a couple of hours with. This particular bear was feeding on roots along a hillside near the Lamar Valley. As I was going through these images I was surprised to see how the bear’s body position could have a profound affect on the mood of the image.

In this first image we have the quintessential teddy bear, big round face, innocent eyes, and a chubby roly-poly body. This image to me has a nice restful, quiet feeling about it; the bear looks cute and cuddly.

In this next image the bear has risen on his hind legs to get a better look at something on the other side of the next hilltop. For me this image is humorous, the bears vertical body position makes me smile. It also makes me curious about what has captured his attention.

This final image has a completely different feeling. In this image we have direct eye contact, the bear’s paw is raised showing those big scary claws, his body posititon leads you to believe he is getting ready to turn and charge. He looks as if he may be thinking about having a photographer for dinner. (Not to worry Mrs. Z nothing could be further from the truth).  It is really just smoke and mirrors, I knew when I made this image that the bear’s body position and direct eye contact would give this image a tension a feeling of impending confrontation. The truth of the matter is that, the bear just happened to glance back at me as he was slowly walking away.

This past winter I took a quick trip up to the Michigan’s upper Peninsula to try to photograph the snowy owls that had been seen hanging around the Rudyard area. I was up there for three days, the weather did not really cooperate I only saw the sun one time right around sunset on the second day. The sun peeked out from beneath the clouds just before it set, the gray background in this images is the dark storm clouds to the east.

Hey everyone I am still alive. Sorry that I have not been able to do a post for a while. But I have been travelling a lot lately, I have only been home three days in the last month. Most of that time was spent out west, where I shot Greater Sage Grouse dancing on their lek, spring bears in Yellowstone, I even hauled the floating blind out there to do some waterfowl. It was a great trip very productive, I shot over 8,000 images, photographing many subjects for the first time.

I do apologize for not being able to post. Moving forward however, I want you to know that I am going to try something different, I am going to try and do smaller posts more often, my goal is going to be, to try and do a post every Wednesday.

For this post I would like to share a couple of images I made late this fall. In November I made an exploratory trip down to Jasper Polaski Fish and Wildlife area in Northern Indiana. Jasper Polaski is a staging area used by sandhill cranes as they migrate south. I think it is one of the best places in the Midwest to photograph these birds in flight. The birds start to gather in late September with their numbers peaking around mid November, when there are usually between 10,000 and 15,000 birds.

I was there one morning and the birds were gathered in the Goose Pasture viewing area. The morning was perfect not a cloud in the sky with winds out of the southeast. I mention the wind direction because it is very important in this type of photography. Birds will usually take off and land into the wind. Winds out of the southeast means that when I set up with the rising sun at my back most of the birds would be flying toward the southeast at a perfect angle towards me. If the winds were out of the west and I had the rising sun at my back most of the birds would be taking off and landing toward the west facing away from me, not very photogenic.

As soon as the sun comes up the birds start leaving the pasture, singly and in small flocks. The birds are heading out to the surrounding farm fields to feed for the day. It took about three hours for all of the birds to leave the pasture, at which time I packed it up. I suppose I could have worked them feeding in the fields during the rest of the day, but I had somewhere else I had to be. In the evening the cycle reverses itself and you photograph the birds as they fly back into this same pasture.

I took hundreds of pictures here are a couple of my favorites.

Just in case some of you missed it on my seminars page I will be teaching my one day nature photography seminar “The Art of Nature Photography” in Grand Rapids, MI on Saturday March 27th from 9:00 until 4:00

Grand Rapids, MI

Park Congregational Church, 10 E. Park Ave. NE, Grand Rapids (downtown)

Saturday March 27th 9:00AM to 4:00PM (doors open at 8:30)

Cost $79.00 per person

$10.00 Discount for members of a Camera Club

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When I was in Yellowstone this past fall I did make some images of creatures other than elk. In this post I would like to share some of my favorites with you.

While I was out there one of the things that I really wanted to shoot was Mountain Bluebirds. At this time of year these beautiful birds are gathered in small flocks. If you get lucky and happen upon one of these flocks you have a pretty good chance at getting some decent images. Also one day I came upon this pair of ravens sitting together. I really love it when I can get a pair of animals lined up so they are both sharp, in the same frame, especially with such a beautiful background.

This was the year of the coyote in Yellowstone. I see coyote pretty much every time I go to Yellowstone but this year they were everywhere. I have to wonder if, due to the reintroduction of the wolves the coyote have adapted to be more active during the day when the wolves are less active. This first shot is an image of a young coyote mid-pounce. As coyotes hunt they walk along slowly listening for mice and voles in the grass ahead of them. When they locate one they will zero in on exactly where the prey is using their ears, and then pounce. As you watch a coyote work a meadow it is surprising how effective they are using this method.

This next image is the likely outcome of such a pounce.

I really liked this next shot of an eagle because of the dramatic pose as he lifted off from the perch he had been sitting on for quite awhile. This vertical image is actually cropped out of a horizontal image. I liked the drama of him flying right at the viewer. The next image of an osprey was made along the Madison river. I have to say that the osprey is not as effective a hunter as the coyote. I spent about an hour with this particular bird and during that time he made about a dozen dives into the water attempting to catch a trout for lunch, none of which were successful.

At one point myself and a couple of buddies found a small flock of Mountain Bluebirds about fifty yards off the road. Of course we grabbed our gear and headed out to photograph these birds. We spent about 45 minutes slowly working our way into position and started to photograph these birds. After awhile I turned around to discover that we had created quite a traffic jam. Everyone saw three guys off the road with giant telephoto lenses and assumed we were photographing a bear or something. Finally one of these people decided to come out and ask us where the bear was. Upon returning to the road he announced that we were ‘just photographing birds’ afterwhich, the crowd dispersed pretty quickly.

I would have this next section serve as a cautionary tale. I am often asked if I am ever scared, nervous, or whether I have ever been charged by one of my subjects. My response is that for the most part if you are careful and use a long lens and don’t push your subject, nature photography is a pretty safe pursuit. To which I always add that most animals will give you warnings, if they feel threatened by you, they will lay their ears back, or turn sideways to you, or raise their hackles, or give some other sign to let you know they are distressed. Except moose, moose give you no warnings at all they just come get you. Knowing this I was photographing this particular moose in Yellowstone with a 600mm lens so I was about 60 or 70 yards away from him. In fact there were many “foolish” photographers that were much closer to this bull moose, the truth is I was about the farthest photographer from the moose. I was photographing him as he worked his way along a small river. When he chose to stop at a most unfortunate spot, behind a small rise that was blocking half his body. He just needed to take two more steps and he would be in a perfect spot.  Well since it was mating season for moose I decided to try out my cow moose in heat call, one small bellow (I only needed him to take two steps after all).  Bad decision!  This poor fellow took the bait, hook, line, and sinker, and not only came around the rise but came around it at a steady jog, directly at me.  Well, I am over half a football field away so, no problem, I step around from the back of my tripod, which of course, is the universal signal for, HEY, I am a human being go away.  Apparently this particular moose was not aware of this universal signal, and it only seemed to anger him that I was not the cow moose that had just given him the female moose equivalent of “hey there big boy”.  His pace quickened, I looked around and realized that I was in the middle of a treeless meadow so, no problem, he was still a long distance away (but closing fast) I gathered up my tripod legs threw my rig over my shoulder and started to back away and move slowly to the left in a very non-threatening way (all the while trying not to look like a female moose in heat).  Well much to my surprise, and distress he turned and followed me, ignoring all of the much closer “foolish” photographers.

At this point I decided that there were two possible things going through poor lovesick Bullwinkle’s head. Option 1, he knew that I had fooled him and wanted to take his frustrations out on well… me. Option 2, was that this moose was legally blind, and my cow moose in heat call was far better than I had ever imagined, and this poor fellow thought that I was in fact, a cow moose in heat. Obviously, both of these scenarios were less then ideal and would more than likely end poorly for me. So I decided that from my perspective, the best play was to beat a hasty retreat. Which I did, post haste, towards the line of cars that had stopped to watch with great interest the exciting drama that was unfolding before them. So casting aside any sense of pride or dignity I ran, I ran hard, and I ran fast, I may have even screamed a little I am not sure, it is all kind of a blur from here on. But I remember at one point looking back and thinking that he was gaining on me faster than I was gaining on the line of cars. It was at this moment that I decided I needed to shed some weight, and I was seriously considering tossing aside my very heavy very very expensive camera, lens, and tripod, to not only shed the weight, but to possibly distract the beast. Thankfully, it was at this very moment that this raging ball of hormones decided to break off his chase and leave me alone, to gather up what little was left of my dignity, catch my breath, and go about the rest of my life. I am sure to the bitter disappointment of the gathering audience of Yellowstone visitors.

I am quite certain that floating around on you tube somewhere there is a video of me being chased by this poor lovesick moose. If you come across it please send me the link. No, check that, on second thought, I probably don’t want to see it.

This fall I was asked to put on a presentation for The Photographic Society of America’s 75th annual conference. Since this year the conference was to meet in West Yellowstone at the end of September (the best time of the year to be in Yellowstone) I quickly agreed. Of course I decided that I would stay over a few days and work the park. Yellowstone is one of my favorite places I have been there more than a dozen times. I usually stay in Gardner Montana just outside of the north entrance, because from there I can get to most of the areas of the park I like to work within an hour or less. But this year because of road closures near Norris the park was pretty much cut in half. After a couple of days scouting we decided that most of the action was near Madison. Which due to the road closures was now an unacceptable 3 hour drive away, so we ended up relocating to West Yellowstone as our base.

One of the iconic animals of Yellowstone are the elk I have taken thousands upon thousands of photographs of elk over the years, but I always look forward to the opportunity to shoot them again. This year I was able to get some images of elk that I was very happy with here are a few of them.

This first shot is an image I have been trying to get for quite some time.  A shot of a bull elk with his rack laid back walking directly at the camera, this is the view a cow elk sees as the bull is attempting to heard her back into line. I really like the intensity, and the “in your face” feel of this image.

Here are a couple of images showing the kind of morning I am always hoping for when I go on a trip, a nice foggy morning with great light and a great subject in an interesting place. Whenever fall rolls around and I am not in Yellowstone I always yearn for the sound of bull elk filling the valleys with their bugling.

I really liked the nice black background in this next shot, I created it by lying on the ground in the meadow and lining up the shadowed portion of a mountain behind the elk. Nikon’s 200 to 400 zoom is the ideal lens for this type of large mammal photography. Because it is the perfect focal length (with a 1.5 crop factor it becomes a 300 to 600 zoom) and having the ability to zoom allows me to fine tune my cropping and composition prior to making the picture.

The following shot has a very painterly feeling about it, It is created using a motion blur technique, this technique also lends a real sense of motion to the image. This is achieved by shooting a slow shutter speed (1/30th sec.) and panning with the subject as it runs in front of you. The trick is to get a frame where you have a good background, good subject body position, and a reasonably sharp eye. Shooting digital makes it free to try these more experimental, low percentage techniques.

This final image shows a bull elk in full camouflage, he is probably trying to hide from all of us pesky photographers.

In my next post I will put up some of the other images I was able to make during my last trip out west.

This summer I had a week to kill between two shows on the east coast. Since I had no idea where I wanted to go or what I wanted to shoot, I was very happy to get an email from Doug Rodda a great photographer that lives near New York city.  Doug noticed that I was going to be in the area and was nice enough to offer to show me around. I had met Doug a couple of years earlier when we spent some great times photographing warblers at Crane Creek in Ohio. Doug is an excellent photographer and knows the New York area very well (doesn’t even use a GPS in the city). You really should check out his outstanding work on his website: http://www.tdroddaphoto.com/ I have mentioned in previous posts what a great group of people nature photographers are. Well Doug is exactly what I am talking about he took time off work and drove me around to all of the best places to shoot in the area.  I am quite certain that, had I tried to do it myself I would still be lost somewhere in Brooklyn.

It was really amazing to see how in one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world nature finds a way to exist. Here are some of the images that I made in the Big Apple.

This next group of images were made at my favorite place we went which was, Nickerson Beach on Long Island. we worked a common tern and black skimmer colony, had a lot of great opportunities for good flight photography. As the parents were flying back and forth feeding the young.

Even got a crack at an ospery as it flew by one day.

Sorry I have not been able to do a post for a while. I was gone most of September, on different photography trips. One of which was to an area I really love; Yellowstone and Teton National Parks.  I will get some of the images from that trip up in a future post.

For today’s post however, I would like to share some of the high speed flash images I made of bats in flight. I have to say that this ended up being a lot more difficult than I anticipated. I mistakenly thought this would be easy due to the fact that I was working in an indoor studio with relatively tame bats. We had a twenty foot flight cage and I naively thought that I could just build a window in the center of the cage, and photograph the bats as they flew through the window to get from one side to the other, using a camera trigger to trip the camera.  A camera trigger is a device that creates an optical beam that, when broken, fires the camera.

Well, unfortunately when we release the bats, instead of flying through the window as expected, they comfortably perched on the whichever side of the window they were released on. They simply would not fly back and forth through the window. I ended up having to build a flight tunnel to release the bats into. A flight tunnel is a square tube which has a large opening at one end (where we release the bat) and then narrows down to an opening that is just large enough for a bat to fly through. Of course, there could be no place inside the flight tunnel for the bats to perch. At the narrow end, I placed the camera trigger so that as the bats exited the tunnel, they would break the beam firing the flashes.  That’s right, I said fire the flashes (usually the trigger would fire the camera), in this case however, I had the trigger setup to fire the flashes instead of the camera. The problem with having the trigger trip the camera (instead of the flashes) is that there is a slight delay between when the beam is broken and when the shutter actually opens. During this delay a bat can fly as much as 6 or 8 inches. This makes it very difficult to predict where the bat would be when the shutter actually opens and therefore, difficult to decide where to set the focus. When the trigger fires the flash instead of the camera, the camera’s shutter is left open using the bulb setting and when the flash fires, this burst of light makes the exposure. Using this method, there is virtually no delay so I can tell exactly where the bat will be when the flash fires making the exposure. After the flashes go off, I close the shutter and prepare for the next shot. This of course must all happen in a darkened room so that I can leave the camera’s shutter open without the ambient light from the room affecting the exposure. An added bonus of working in a darkened room is that the bats are more comfortable and more active in the dark. Although, I can tell you that a couple times when a bat decided after it’s trip through the flight tunnel, that my head looked like a comfortable perch, I would have liked to have had the lights on!  It is more than a little unsettling to have a bat decide to perch on your face in almost total darkness! A note to anyone who might have an irrational fear of bats, the bats I was photographed were mostly hand raised by people and therefore did not have their natural fear of humans. A wild bat would never attempt to perch on your face!

Here are a few of my favorite images that I was able to make.

In the next image just by chance, two bats happened to fly through the opening at the same time. The bat on top is a macro bat these usually larger bats use their eyesite more that echolocation to get around. The bat on the bottom has it’s mouth open actively using echolocation.