Lost and Found and the Short-eared Owl

Separate encounters with three different raptors species woven together through a harrowing game of hide and seek. Found the Snowy During recent years, in the northeastern United States, winters have produced irruptions of snowy owls. It is believed that, following a banner breeding season, the higher population of over-wintering owls forces the youngsters further south in search of food. In Read More …

Ornaments in the Forest

If anxieties were appendages, the forest floor would be buried in the corporeal masses of those shed by visitors, the trails impassable. This is what flitted through my thoughts as I trekked through the, thankfully uncluttered, woods one recent December afternoon.  It had been months since I had carved out the time to aimlessly explore nature.  My head felt jumbled, Read More …

Woody on Ice

Since I began photographing Wood Ducks in 2014 I have dreamed of a shot with a drake in nuptial plumage surrounded by ice or snow. Wood Ducks typically migrate south before the first snow falls so it’s not a common sight in upstate New York. In the spring of 2016 we had a deep freeze after the Woodies had returned Read More …

Cold Lunch

Listening to the harsh wind whipping outside I was grateful to be working on a project indoors.  As I sat cozy and warm by the fireplace I thought there was nothing that would bring me out into that bitter cold.  And then the phone rang.  My friends at the local Wild Birds Unlimited had a Merlin outside that had captured Read More …

Photographing Wood Ducks in the Wild

“What an ornament to a river to see that glowing gem floating in contact with its waters!” – Henry David Thoreau, writing about the drake Wood Duck Yesterday was World Photography Day and on social media I wrote briefly about my beginnings, five years ago when I set out to photograph wood ducks at my favorite, local wetland.  I thought I Read More …