This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This 7-point bull is exhibiting the Flehmen Response with its head and upper lip raised. Certain species of mammals do this to increase their ability to detect and evaluate scent. It’s a common sight during the mating season, but it can occur any time of the year. This photo was taken in mid December, well past the end of the rut.
Crows aren’t the most beautiful or colorful birds. The same holds true for ravens. However,they are both blessed with one attribute that would seem to be more important in the wild — intelligence. Studies have shown crows and ravens to be among the most intelligent of all birds. What I like about this photo is the effect from the eye’s nictitating membrane.
This mourning dove let me get quite close. The coloring of these birds, with their black eyes, teal orbital rings and tans and grays of their bodies, is subtle, but beautiful.
As I mentioned in a recent post, the elk at Tomales Point are kept there by a fence that runs across the peninsula from Tomales Bay to the ocean. However, occasionally they will go around the end of the fence. I’ve seen bulls outside the enclosure, but never a cow. Here is a bull that was inside a corral at the Kehoe Ranch on October 31. Twenty minutes later when I came back from the Pierce Point Ranch area the bull was gone. The gate was open. I assume that’s how the bull got in. Later, I realized that I should have told the people at the Kehoe Ranch and/or the Park Service that the bull was in the Kehoe corral. Maybe it was an opportunity to get the animal back into the enclosure.
I saw this bull on my last trip to Point Reyes. He was in the elk enclosure at Pierce Point. I think the rut was over, but he was with a half dozen females.
This cow elk was spotted feeding near the former Pierce Point Ranch which is located on the Tomales Point Peninsula. The Tomales Point Peninsula is where elk were re-introduced to the Seashore in about 1975. They are restricted by a fence that was erected just before the re-introduction. It runs across the peninsula from Tomales Bay to the ocean. The fence was installed to keep the elk out of the ranches on the Seashore.
When fall comes around and I think of Point Reyes, two things come to mind — the elk rut and the hawk migration. This red-tail let me get fairly close.
