Tail Slap

It was a beautiful spring evening, a great evening to head for the nearest beaver pond to see and photograph whatever was happening there.

On the walk to the pond I could hear a common raven calling but couldn’t locate the bird. Then the raven flew from a clump of trees far across the field, and right behind it was a common crow. Crows harass hawks, owls – and ravens. They flew on by, the raven performed a flip and put on the brakes, letting the crow fly past. With that, the crow abandoned the chase and the raven circled back to fly in the other direction –

There are a few bluebird boxes in the field, two of which have been claimed by tree swallows –

As I got closer to the beaver pond it was time for full camo: a leafy jacket, facemask and gloves. Because I seldom photograph wildlife in parks or where they’re habituated to humans, camouflage helps me get more and better photos.

A pair of Canada geese swam in the beaver pond and set up a racket as I got closer –

While the geese were carrying on, a male wood duck flew in to land on the far side of the beaver pond – what beautiful birds they are –

It was only a few minutes later when a muskrat emerged from the plants along the edge of the water and proceeded to swim across the pond – they're fast swimmers –

Fifteen minutes after the muskrat swam past the first beaver surfaced, swam across the pond following the muskrat and disappeared from view into a much larger wetland. A few minutes later two beavers popped to the surface almost simultaneously and proceeded to swim around the pond for a while –

The larger beaver quietly dove, while the smaller one continued to swim around the pond –

Beavers are cautious when there's something strange nearby (me), they’ll often tail slap and dive in one motion. In this case, the beaver immediately resurfaced and then did another tail slap which I caught on camera in a series of still images –

And stitched more than 20 of those photos together to yield a “slow motion video" –

And then it was time to leave the beavers alone to be beavers.

Disappointing

We’ve all seen outstanding wildlife photographs in magazines or as movies and/or videos. What we don’t see are the countless days, hours, weeks or months the photographers spent trying to get those photos and clips.

The wildlife photographers who take still images or film truly wild mammals and birds often spend hour after hour or day after day or week after week waiting for their quarry to appear in front of their lenses – and it may never happen. Most wildlife photographers are quite used to being frustrated or disappointed for a variety of reasons at various times .

For the last six months I’ve often been one of those frustrated folks. It began last fall when we headed for Pennsylvania’s elk range to photograph elk during the rut. When I became interested in the elk, roughly 50 years ago, there were only 50-60 of these majestic animals in the state. Year after year we’ve gone to photograph elk in all seasons and gotten some wonderful photos –

In the last 15 years, both the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources seem to be using the elk herd (now numbering 1000+) as a cash cow and tourist attraction.

To this naturalist the annual elk hunt seems to give the lie to the concept of a hunt being conducted on “fair chase” principles. And there’s now a multi-million dollar visitor center and tour busses and wagon rides. What about the elk? Well the elk seem to have all but disappeared from their prior haunts; they may well have been driven off by the hordes of tourists – we’ve been driven off as well.

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For a number of years short-eared owls have wintered on what I call “Harrier Hill”, a large area of hayfields, pastures and cropland. Local photographers and some visitors from far away have enjoyed standing on the windy hill in sub-freezing temperatures trying for a few good photos of the owls.

Last winter there were only a few sightings of short-eared owls on the hill – and only two by yours truly.

Why ? To human eyes the habitat hasn’t changed, does it look the same to an owl? The weather may have been a factor, the winter had been colder than recent years and 10 ½ inches of snow fell in one storm during February. Some of the snow had blown off the highest points, some had sublimated and much had settled, voles and mice can move beneath the snow in some degree of safety.

But vole populations are cyclic as are most species of wildlife, gradually rising from a low point over a couple of years until reaching a peak and then suddenly crashing. If the population of voles collapsed, there may well not have been enough food to keep owls in the area.

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It was spring, warm and sunny with the buds swelling on trees overhead and some shrubs already leafing out. I spent two mornings sitting in full camo beside a small stream in the Big Woods hoping for photos of a winter wren or a Louisiana water-thrush or almost anything else that would be interesting. In all those hours, what was the only wildlife that appeared? A gray squirrel, the same species I could have photographed from our kitchen window almost any day – and gotten a better photo at that –

 

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Recently a friend and I went to a site where timber rattlesnakes are known to bask. The day was ideal, warm and sunny, but not too hot for the snakes to be basking on the rocks. How many snakes did we see? One, a garter snake. Oh well, there will be a lot of days that we can try, try, again before the snakes head for their winter dens. 

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Patience is not something I have in any quantity so I'll never join the ranks of those wildlife photographers who spend months in a blind (hide) waiting for that one chance to get an award-winning image.

Wildlife photographers have to be tolerant of frustration and disappointments – but on those occasions when everything comes together, WOW !!

Nature Photography Day

Nature Photography Day was begun in 2006 by the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA) and is celebrated each year on June 15.

Nature’s everywhere including the small, not very obvious, ordinary things. The weed growing in the crack in the driveway, the pigeons on the bridge – they’re nature just as much as the rarest of orchids and the bird far from its usual distribution.

 

You can take a nature photograph with the least expensive of cameras or the camera in your cellphone and have an image that you may want to keep and share with other folks.

It may be hard to find the time to to look closely and appreciate nature – but Nature Photography Day is a day to pause for a moment to appreciate the beauty and importance of nature.

Take some time to find a few beautiful and inspiring photographs of the natural world, they may be online or in a magazine or book, and pause for just a moment to consider how poor this world would be without the things in those photos. 

Strix varia

Fifty-four years ago H and I had been hiking a scenic trail in northcentral Pennsylvania and camped near a small spring on the edge of the Allegheny Plateau. We’d settled in and were asleep in our sleeping bags when we were jolted awake by a call that’s been described as “Who cooks for you, who cooks for you ALL!” sounding from right above our tent.

The origin of the nighttime racket that woke us was a barred owl (Strix varia) calling to another barred owl that answered from a distance. The back-and-forth calls continued for quite a while until our overhead neighbor moved on.

Barred owls favor forests of large trees, with a mix of hardwoods and conifers near streams, wetlands or wooded swamps, there they feed on small mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians – and even earthworms –

To produce the future generations of barred owls, the birds nest in a variety of locations – they sometimes use the abandoned nest of a hawk or crow (which they line with conifer twigs), but prefer a large tree cavity or nest box –

Some barred owls are surprisingly tolerant of humans, remaining perched on a limb and not flying off at the first sign of a person. A friend who rehabilitated injured birds from ducks to eagles always said that owls are stupid. That may or may not be true, but they’re certainly not as mentally capable as ravens or crows.

Barred owls range from southern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and have recently extended their range to the west coast where they out-compete and sometimes hybridize with the smaller, related and endangered spotted owl.

Barred owls tend to be sedentary, not traveling much once they’ve established a territory, and do not migrate. They’re also long-lived, there’s a record of one living more than 26 years in the wild.

The birds hunt at night where their superb hearing enables them to detect prey moving amid fallen leaves or beneath snow. 

Daytime is spent roosting on a tree limb, often that of a conifer, or in tree cavities; they apparently mate for life and both birds of a mated pair often roost in close proximity.

Forests of large old trees are becoming scarce, and big trees with large cavities are especially uncommon in managed forests – where will the barred owls go?

Each and Every Day of Spring …

… my camera is used to make photographs of the natural world. The natural world that’s in such danger from those who don’t care, from those who are only interested in the money to be made and from those who don’t understand that we’re all dependent on the world around us and all its plants and creatures.

These are photographs taken each day of meteorological spring, the months of March, April and May when the natural world awakens from the torpor of winter. Spring, when plants begin to flower, tree leaves burst forth from buds, when a new generation of birds, mammals and small critters is born. 

Now spring has transitioned to summer. The upcoming season isn't my favorite season by any means, but it presents hordes of possibilities for photographs of the natural world and its denizens: insects, flowers, birds, mammals, scenery, reptiles, trees, amphibians, and ...

Opportunities for great experiences and great photos abound, visit any natural area or large park and you'll see for yourself. It may be too darned hot but I'll still be out with camera in hand – how about you?