A group of willow ptarmigan huddle beneath a willow in Alaska.
It seems hiding in plain sight would be risky business in our hostile and unforgiving world. But few strategies for survival are as effective as camouflage. Countless species of wildlife including birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, insects have adapted diverse methods of camouflage for offense as well as defense. Continue reading
ON THE TRACK OF THE SNOWSHOE HARE
A snowshoe hare watches his backtrail.
In the far north snowshoe hares are trapped in an eternal cycle. A ten year cycle of life and death, of peak and crash, of predator and prey. Currently snowshoes are at the bottom of their population cycle. Predator species like the northern goshawk, northern hawk owl, and lynx crash a year or two after the hares. When the hare population is low they can still be found in bunny patches, small pockets of prime habitat. Thickets of mixed forests, spruce, poplar and willow are sanctuaries where a few hares somehow manage to survive extremely heavy pressure from predators. In lodgepole forests of eastern Idaho, my old stompin grounds, the snowshoe hares did not seem to go through the extreme population peak and crash. Continue reading
CURIOSITY
Curiosity, pure and simple, the kind my two year old grandaughter is full of, is an essential element for the creative photo naturalist
THE PHOTO NATURALIST
Welcome to my new blog, THE PHOTO NATURALIST. I hope to share what little I have learned from forty years as a professional wildlife photographer.
Nature photography is nothing new, it’s been around for onehundred and sixty five years. George Eastman’s camera was manufactured in 1888. Pre-loaded with one hundred exposures, the Kodak Brownie had to be returned to the factory for processing and reloading. For the first time photography was available to everyone. Continue reading