This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This is one of the two reasons why spring is my favorite season to be in Yellowstone. Baby animals. The other reason? Bears.
I’ve uploaded this photo and a dozen other red fox photos to my website. You can see them by clicking here.
I photographed this 1 and 1/2 year old cub on three or more occasions in early June of this year. Locals had named it “Brownie.” Each time the cub was between 100 and 200 yards from the road near Pilgrim Creek. Unfortunately, it’s almost certain that this is the same cub that was killed by a car on June 21st. For two articles about the accident, click here.
This is one of 399’s cubs. She is famous for her habit of staying near roads and people, at least when she has cubs. She is also famous for producing triplets, which is rare. I wrote about 399 and this cub previously and said that getting comfortable around roads and humans was not a good thing for cubs to learn. You can read that story here.
One thing I want to point out about this photo is that it’s pretty easy to tell that this is a 1 and 1/2 year old cub. Notice how long and narrow the face is. It’s not much different in shape than the face of a German Shepard dog. By the time a grizzly cub is one year older the face has changed a lot. For a photo of a 2 and 1/2 year old cub whose face is noticeably wider, click here. See the third photo. The cub is on the right. (Mom is still teaching junior the pecking order at dinner. A couple of days later this cub got the boot from mom and a boar that came calling.) For a photo of what the head of a really large grizzly looks like click here. Notice how small the eyes appear in relation to the head. Eyes grow little, if any, from birth.
Happy 236th Birthday and counting. I remember the 200th celebration pretty well. I wonder what America and this earth will be like in 2076?
A good argument can be made that July 2 should be the day we celebrate because that’s the day the Continental Congress actually voted to declared its independence from Great Britain. We celebrate it today because this is the day the Congress approved the wording of the document which would be known as the Declaration of Independence. Don’t assume it was signed that day. Who signed when is in controversy.
If you’re interested in a summary of events surrounding the Declaration of Independence click here.
Each year on or about this day I post a photo of a bald eagle to recognize and celebrate the fact that five years ago today the Fish & Wildlife Service announced that the bald eagle in the lower 48 States had recovered enough to be removed from the list of threatened and endangered species. We almost lost it due to DDT and other persistent pesticides. Thanks to Rachel Carson, the Endangered Species Act and other factors, the story of the bald eagle in the lower 48 was a story of success. The same can be said for other species like the osprey, which was also hurt by DDT. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way.
Here is one of the many bluebirds I saw in Yellowstone recently. I’ve added him and a few others to my website today. You can see the them by clicking here and then using the right arrow on your keyboard. You may need to click on the web page before you can use your right arrow to move to the next image.
About the only negative to wildlife photography in Yellowstone is having to go through all your photos to separate the chaff from the wheat. I shoot about 1,000 images a day and there is no time to go through them until I get home. Going through 14,000 images is a daunting task. I’ve started with black bears and I still have 1,800 black bear photos to delete or save.
This photo was taken at sunset at Phantom Lake using a 500mm lens and 1.4 tele-extender. When shooting early and late in the day the delete rate goes up because it gets harder to stop subject movement. This image was shot at 125th of a second at ISO 2,000. I don’t like raising the ISO much above 800 but I had to go to 2000 to make sure I at least got some sharp photos of the animal standing still and, hopefully, moving as well.
Yesterday’s photo of the elk calf was taken an hour before sunset. The light was still pretty strong as you could see. This photo was taken at sunset and these young tule elk bulls are in the shade. Much nicer light and color in the shade, especially at sunset.
Each of these young bulls has five points per antler. Points are an indicator of age in elk. According to the Park Service, one-year old bulls have a single spike. Two-year olds usually have slender antlers with four to five points. Three year olds have thicker antlers with four to five points and four year old and older bulls usually have six points on each antler and they get thicker each year. Yellowstone Resources and Issues 2009 at p. 126. While the Park Service document was focusing on Rocky Mountain elk, I don’t believe there is any difference with regard to the antlers of these tule elk at Point Reyes National Seashore.
So, are these five-point elk two or three years old? I’m not sure, but I’m guessing they are three year olds. Their antlers aren’t that slender and I’ve seen bulls with skinny antlers and four or five points and they’re still hanging out with the cows and yearlings. These guys in the photo are hanging out with the big six (and seven) point bulls.
