Calming Water

I've always been fascinated by images showing smooth water in bright light.  For me the milky water matches the calming sound of the water rushing over rocks.

Technical: The Sony RX10ii has a 3 stop ND filter built in and ISO down to 64 making images like this easy.

Next in line

I looked for hepatica yesterday and was a little early, only finding this plant getting ready to bloom. The snow trillium were past peak and anemone are only budding. Spring is moving into high gear.

Happy Easter!

An early start to prairie color, this pasque flower is living up to its name. They should open up over the next few days.

Tiny Stream

I started playing with slow motion video using my iPhone last summer and found it was a great tool to modify time in nature.  One of the pitfalls I see on Youtube is using slow motion throughout the entire video, decreasing its drama. This short video has two slow clips interspersed with normal footage. A Sony RX10ii was used with speed slowed 8x (1second=8seconds).

The last snow?

We missed the big storm but there was enough to get some images before it melted yesterday. At this time of year I like to use my solar powered snow shovel. The driveway was snow was completely gone without any effort on my part by the end of the day.

 

Successful Hunt

With snow on the ground this morning I'm sharing a short video recorded earlier this month in Yellowstone. This fox spent several minutes hunting while we watched and captured both still and video images.

 

Pushing through

Snow trillium are the first wildflowers of spring, usually preceding hepatica by a couple weeks. In the past the first week of April has been a good time to see them. With the hottest February in history I went out a little earlier this year and found them starting to bloom. They are not quite at peak but definitely in bloom.  They might be hard to find later in the week with the predicted snow storm.

Looking for color

I was hiking in the woods last week looking for signs of color in an otherwise dull gray March afternoon. To my surprise I found this scarlet cup (just love those common names) looking cheery as it poked up through the leaves. My wife usually finds these for me since red is a hard color for me to see. However, I had no problem seeing this one.

Technical: Gardening was done by arranging nearby leaves to surround the cup. The leaves also give a sense of scale and season.

Skunks and Rabbits

Most of the skunks I have seen have been odoriferous road-kills or scavenging skunks around farm buildings. This camera trap gives us a glimpse of their behavior in the wild. Before seeing this I have thought of skunks as omnivorous scavengers but never as predators, especially rabbits. 

Technical: Scenes recorded over about 3 weeks. 

I smell something.

I'm moving on from ears to the nose. This guy stopped in front of the camera one morning and knew something was up but couldn't localize the the camera.

Technical: I stopped using scent blockers a few years ago and use time to degrade human scent. A camera is left in place at least a week before being checked and frequently for several weeks. It will be interesting to see if he is more relaxed the next time he passes by.

Flop Ear

This floppy ear turns this guy into a rogue. When I first saw him he was dapper but the more I looked the more sinister he became. I have been thinking about animal ears lately (a slow time of the year) and this bent ear creates an individual with character. What do you think?

Moose ears

I usually concentrate on eyes when photographing but when watching and waiting the ears are my markers for impending action or movement. Clearly alert ears pointing toward you means you have been "busted" and the animal is about to leave. In this case it is totally focussed on someone else, probably a door slamming. When away from the road this moose responded to car doors and people talking a quarter mile away. Can you imagine what the sound of a sneeze feels like?

Ears

While watching this red fox hunt I couldn't help noticing how its ears moved as it cocked its head to locate an unlucky vole under the snow. Angela and I spent a very entertaining time watching this guy hunt in Hayden Valley last week. You can see a few of her shots at: angelainoregon

No where to go

Heading home after two weeks in Yellowstone. Bison were everywhere and getting a unique image can be a challenge, especially since they spend most of there time eating. This guy was in Lamar Canyon one morning.