Feathers & Fur
Today I thought I would post a few images taken this past week from Antelope Island State Park and the west desert in Tooele County. Feathers & Fur.
Today I thought I would post a few images taken this past week from Antelope Island State Park and the west desert in Tooele County. Feathers & Fur.
A few days ago I read that a Long-billed Curlew had been spotted on Antelope Island State Park and that got me excited. I've waited to see them again since they left last fall and I simply can not wait to hear their mysterious and hauntingly beautiful call.
Chukars are not native to North America, they were introduced as game birds and in some areas they have thrived, one of those locations is Antelope Island State Park in northern Utah.
I am one of those people who love deserts and the West Desert of Utah is once again beckoning to me. The weather here in Utah is very changeable right now, it can feel like spring one day and the next it still feels like winter but it won't be long before the weather levels out and the west desert will begin to green up.
I photographed this adult Bananaquit while on the island of Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas. The island was full of these birds.
This is the third post in my series about Wild and Wonderful Antelope Island State Park, I've saved the best (and longest) for last. The Birds! Okay, maybe they aren't the best thing about Antelope Island State Park, but I am a bird photographer and they are what I am most passionate about!
I am not sure why but it seems that many bird photographers avoid taking images of gulls, most of the time when I've asked them why they don't take more photos of gulls I hear "I just don't like gulls".
To those hunters who recognized and respected the rarity of those beautiful and very uncommon birds, you have my respect and I am personally very grateful that you preferred to give these ducks a pass even though you knew that hunting them was legal.
Little Blue Herons were a wading bird that I saw often in Florida. The day I photographed this Little Blue Heron I was sitting quietly in the shallow water of a lagoon when this bird flew in and began to hunt.
There were high thin clouds and that worked in my favor to photograph these large white birds without blowing out the whites.
When I first visited Antelope Island State Park I fell in love with its wild beauty, the windswept grasslands, pungent sagebrush, awesome views of the Great Salt Lake and the wildlife that abounds there.
Fish Crows are fairly commonplace along the coast of Pinellas County and they are often ignored by photographers because they are a "plain" common bird.
Be prepared to become addicted to birds. You will have withdrawals if you don't shoot often enough, your shutter button finger will develop a nervous twitch
Gray days sometimes force me to slow down, to take a deep breath and they allow me the luxury of liesurely looking through my older image files
This blur was not intentional, but I do like the effect caused by the head of the Burrowing Owl spinning. Makes me dizzy just viewing the photo!
There are times that I open an image on my computer screen and I can't help but laugh. This is one of those images for me because of the tilt of the head of the Wilson's Plover.
It is my opinion that Wood Storks do not get nearly the same exposure as other big white wading birds.
This juvenile Wilson's Plover was in the company of an adult bird and both of them were scurrying along some vegetation on the north beach of Fort De Soto.
Another one of my favorite wading birds is the Tricolored Heron, a bird that used to be called the Louisiana Heron. It can be found in estuaries along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, in inland freshwater marshes in Florida.
As a bird photographer it can some times be disheartening when you have great light, a wonderful setting and a beautiful specimen of a bird in front of your lens when you see the "jewelry" (bands) that some birds will be wearing.