Portrait of a California Gull
Over the past week I have seen California Gulls in breeding plumage flying to Egg Island in the Great Salt Lake with nesting material in their bills while on the north end of Antelope Island State Park.
Over the past week I have seen California Gulls in breeding plumage flying to Egg Island in the Great Salt Lake with nesting material in their bills while on the north end of Antelope Island State Park.
These Great Blue Heron photos were taken of the same bird, photographed at same location on the same day just one minute apart.
The sun came out for a few hours yesterday afternoon so I went to a pond near where I live and photographed some of the ducks including this very confiding Redhead drake.
There are times when one subject will make my day in the field worthwhile, yesterday it was a lone Coyote hunting for voles on the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake.
I like gulls. I especially like being able to see them up close when the opportunities arise and will take advantage of my close proximity by taking portraits of these beautiful but often disliked birds.
Male Ring-necked Pheasants are a bold splash of rainbow colors against the white snow laying on the ground right now at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area.
I like Brown Pelicans and even though I don't see them here in Utah I have plenty of images on file that I took during the period of time that I lived in Florida.
Back in March of 2009 while I was photographing a Great Blue Heron on the north beach of Fort De Soto County Park in Florida a Great Egret flew in and walked close to the Great Blue Heron and me.
The Yellow-bellied Marmots are already in their burrows for the winter but with any luck I will see more this coming spring.
Great Egrets develop fancy plumes when they are in breeding plumage and seem to be quite famous for that but their lores also change color from yellow to a lime green
It won't be long before Swainson's Hawks start to migrate to South America and some may already have started their journey south.
Today I wanted to share another example of close up and full body images of another one of my favorite birds; the Reddish Egret.
One December morning in 2008 I was sitting in the sand at Fort De Soto County Park's north beach in Florida when a Great Blue Heron came up and perched on a driftwood stump that had washed up onto the shore.
One of the nicknames for a Coyote is the "Prairie Wolf" and like wolves; they can be very efficient hunters.
In Florida I found it easy to get close up images of Great Blue Herons because quite often they are used to the presence of humans but here in Utah that isn't the case and Great Blue Herons are sort of skittish.
Yesterday a family of Loggerhead Shrikes kept us busy for a bit as the juveniles begged the adults to feed them and the adults were hunting food to bring to the rather noisy youngsters on Antelope Island State Park.
Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron Stalking prey at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in northern Utah
The other day I came across that post and felt very embarrassed because on that post I realized I had incorrectly ID'd this bird as a Red-tailed Hawk.
This juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk was perched on a metal fence post so I opted to go for a portrait to remove the "hand of man".
Male Boat-tailed Grackles have velvety black feathers that glow in the right light with iridescence purples, blues, teals and greens.
I'm used to seeing Loggerhead Shrikes all year round here in northern Utah but they have been MIA for quite some time.
In my post yesterday I shared a Coyote photo in the snow and wanted to share a few more of the Coyotes I saw on Antelope Island State Park on Monday.
These two "Great" images were taken two minutes apart of two different "Great" wading birds in Florida.
This Great Egret image was taken in Florida in 2009, the beautiful blue in the background is the water of the Gulf of Mexico.
There are Burrowing Owls on Antelope Island; I've photographed them hundreds of times, but yesterday I spotted one in a location I had never seen one before.
It seems I have always had a fondness for Great Blue Herons although I don't recall the first time I ever saw one. Great Blues are large wading birds that have a prehistoric look to them and even their calls; more like a croak, sound like something from the long distant past.
Despite having "Night Heron" in their name Yellow-crowned Night Herons (Nyctanassa violacea) are not strictly denizens of the dark, they can and do stalk their prey during the daylight hours too.
In Utah I don't often have the opportunity to see and photograph White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) because they have a very limited range here so I was thrilled to have the chance to photograph this doe close up as she fed between the gravel road and a barley field in Glacier County, Montana.
This Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) got up close and personal with me a few years ago in Florida, it largely ignored my presence altogether as it stalked prey on shore of the Gulf of Mexico.
During the spring Western Meadowlarks (Sturnella neglecta) can be easy to locate and then approach because they spend so much time singing from the tops of boulders, bushes, posts and other manmade objects.