Wildlife, landscape and weather photography
You would think turning around on a perch would be a simple thing for a bald eagle and indeed, normally it is. This one however seemed to be having a bit of a hard time with it when I was observing it this past Valentine’s Day.
The overcast skies weren’t particularly ideal but they did provide some nice, even lighting allowing a good deal of detail to be shown of this majestic – if a bit clumsy – creature.
This mountain goat nanny seemed less than thrilled about the blustery winds atop its 14,000+ foot high home.
The last vestiges of its winter coat were holding on tightly and billowing in the wind behind it. Of course wind at that altitude is pretty much a given with few breaks and daytime temperatures consistently chilly if not cold, even in July.
Not long after I was on Mount Evans getting this picture, word came from Colorado Parks & Wildlife that they were having issues with people and the mountain goats. Bad human behavior including feeding the goats, getting way too close to the animals, trampling the alpine tundra, etc have all been witnessed lately. It is a shame and folks need to respect the creatures and the landscape up there!
Normally a picture of these little guys will solicit a comment along the lines of, “Aww. They are so cute!” Well, that isn’t always the case.
This hard-working dad had spent the better part of the morning providing for his family. On the menu were a variety of bugs and a vole. After sharing the bounty and partaking in breakfast, he flew up and perched on a sign right in front of me.
His face wore the remnants of his meal and indeed, he looked pretty darned serious. Of course having to work so hard to feed seven little owlet mouths might have made him a bit grumpy too. 😉
Sitting around the campsite one evening recently, my wife and I were watching this good-sized dragonfly circle around. It proceeded to land on a nearby tree and stayed put for quite a while. This gave me the opportunity to grab my camera and take a bunch of pics of the cool, multi-colored insect.
I’m not really a ‘bug person’ but did find this one way cool! I’m not sure, but doing some searching I think it is a female blue-eyed darner. If anyone knows any different or can confirm, I’d certainly welcome the input.
My first moose of the season from this past Saturday. Check out this cutie!
I fully expected to see plenty of these high country residents in Arapaho National Forest this past weekend and indeed I did. Mama and her little one were by far the highlight, even if they didn’t give me any particularly great poses.
They were in a pretty busy area with lots of campers and mom wasn’t too keen to linger with all those pesky humans around. Soon after I spotted her, some other two-legged folks did as well and that was enough to prompt her little one to follow and head off deep into the forest.
I spent many evenings this spring with a fantastic fox family not far from where I live. I took thousands of pictures of them and spent countless hours just watching and smiling.
Flipping through them, I found a number of images with the kits sampling or playing with the meals that the parents brought back to the den. Typical fare ranged from squirrel and rabbit to some sort of feathered creature, perhaps a goose.
Being juveniles though, the kits didn’t always eat and oftentimes just wanted to play with their food. Here are few of the fun shots I got of them with their dinners.
Oh my! Look at this cutie!
I happened across this white-tailed deer fawn and its mom late last week.
While mom didn’t really pay me much attention, the little one was much more shy and wisely kept its distance. It did give me some nice poses including this one. The early morning sun really lit up its eye showing the color in it.
Taken at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge near Denver, Colorado.
😉 Okay, it didn’t really have gum stuck but it sure seemed like it.
This little one was rather vigorous about something on the bottom of its paw and spent a good five minutes chewing and rubbing it. It was pretty fun to watch, particularly when it almost rolled right off the rock it was sitting on.
I captured this pics last week on Mount Evans in Colorado. There weren’t too many marmots around but the few I did find were quite entertaining.
Sometimes you don’t have to go far for a photo op.
One evening last week my wife and I were sitting on the patio when I saw this huge butterfly circling. I was happy to see the eastern tiger swallowtail settle in at one of our flowerbeds so I rushed inside to grab my camera. I managed a few good pics of it as it hopped from flower to flower.
It was a pretty impressive looking thing and had a wingspan of probably four inches or so. Kind of fun and best of all I didn’t have to go anywhere to get pics. 😉
Last weekend I spent two fantastic mornings photographing these cool little ones in Larimer County, Colorado. They have chosen a home in an open space right near a hiking path and are extraordinarily tolerant of the humans that come walking by.
The adults have seven little mouths to feed so they are constantly flying around nabbing whatever grub they can find. Here, the female returns from a hunting trip, empty-handed much to the chagrin of one of the little ones.
