Zone-tailed Hawk
I have been trying to get a good shot of a Zone-tailed Hawk for quite sometime now. For some reason, the ones I see are very shy and fly away as soon as they see me.
This guy took off right away, but flew over me for about 10 seconds before flying far away, so I was able to snap a couple of pictures of this beautiful bird:
Best of 2009 – Animals
This is a part three to the "Best of 2009" pictures for "Animals" category. To be honest, I haven't done much wildlife photography this year, because I was busy photographing birds, landscapes and portraits. After seeing a small number of animal pics in my photo collection, I decided to try to capture more wildlife this year, if I can.
Unfortunately, one of the worst computer disasters hit me last year, when my hard drive died and I lost two very precious weeks of photographs. Those photographs were priceless - I captured a fox with 5 fox kits in their natural habitat: playing, cuddling with each other and chasing, capturing and eating mice. All of those photos were lost for good and I was only able to save a low-resolution version of a couple of pictures that I sent over email to a fox rescuer. Honestly, if there was a way to save those pics, I would have traded them over everything else I got in 2009...that's how valuable they were for me. I resized those low-res images of foxes and I'm attaching them here. Although they are not as good when it comes to quality, I still love them.
- Red Fox 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Red Fox Kit 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Mountain Pika 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Mountain Pika Voice 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Male Buffalo 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Female Buffalo 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Island Fox 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Coyote 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Dolphin Jump 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
- Channel Islands Side-Blotched Lizard 1920x1200 Widescreen Wallpaper
Thumbnails:
Triptych
I photographed this little blue heron eating fish in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. I was lucky to capture the whole sequence of the heron catching the fish and then swallowing it, so with an idea from a user @ pixland.uz, I created a "triptych" with three of my favorite images from the sequence. I have never done it before, so hopefully it came out all right :)
Bobcat
The rain was intensifying, putting lots of water drops on my camera. I was right about to leave the location after photographing a bird and as I looked around to see what else was worth a shot, I spotted this beautiful bobcat walking around and looking for food. I quickly took a couple of shots, but it was already too late...the bobcat walked into the woods and was gone for good. I love these beautiful creatures and I have only seen them twice in my life, both times in Florida.
Bobcat
Yellowstone: Wildlife
I'll be honest, this part of the Yellowstone tour is probably the most boring one, as I simply do not have any good pictures. I know, it is a shame and it really sucks that I couldn't capture anything good after coming back from Yellowstone, where wildlife is abundant and all over the place.
Ultimately, I wanted to capture nice images of wolves, black and grizzly bears, foxes, coyotes, various birds (eagles, hawks, owls, etc) and so on and so forth. I'm not sure if it was the hot weather, too many people or just bad luck, but we just didn't see much wildlife at all. Sure there were deer, elk, bison and some mountain birds...but I have seen them all in Colorado and I can capture them close right here pretty much any time of the year. I read various booklets, asked rangers and other people and still was not able to see anything special.
Let's start with raptors. Basically, raptors are abundant and can be found everywhere in the park. If you drive along the lakes and rivers, you will most definitely spot Ospreys and Bald Eagles. Ospreys are everywhere and I saw at least 10 of them, whereas Bald Eagles are somewhat rare (only saw a couple).
Common Dolphins
I was hoping to see white-sided or bottlenose dolphins, but only saw common dolphins. These guys were following our boat, jumping out of the water and showing off from all sides - there were probably hundreds of them. It's a pity that we couldn't spend more time watching these beautiful animals.
Island Fox
As promised, here is the picture of the Island Fox - a critically endangered, federally protected fox species that was reintroduced to the Channel Islands through a breeding program. This little fox is a size of the house cat and is considered to be one of the smallest fox species.
A very sad ending for the fox family
Ever since my wife saw a fox on a rainy day in April, I have been going to the site almost every other day to check up on the fox kits. The fox mother gave birth to kits right off a busy road where people drive like crazy at 50+ miles/hour. She did it for a reason though - not to get her babies eaten by coyotes, since coyotes try not to approach busy roads and highways. Initially, there were a total of 5 fox pups, plus the caring mother who had a hard time feeding herself because she was so busy providing food to her youngsters.
One of the fox pups was hit by a car after the first week and a local resident took him to a veterinarian, who had to put him down because the poor baby was suffering from severe head injuries. It was really sad to find out about it from the locals, who were stopping by daily, making sure that the pups were OK. Then all of a sudden, the mother disappeared. Apparently, a man who had a ranch on the other side of the road called trapping services and had the mother relocated somewhere else! Can you imagine, the guy didn't even bother telling the trappers that she was a feeding mother for God's sake! Apparently, he was getting angry because of the people who were stopping by and taking pictures...
Coyote in winter coat
Captured this coyote in Sequoia National Park, CA. He was very curious about us and was walking around, most probably waiting to be fed. It's unfortunate that people feed these animals thinking they are doing the right thing...unfortunately, many coyotes and foxes are put to sleep because once they get used to people, they start approaching them and demanding food.
