I’ve been photographing migrating waterfowl lately and was extremely fortunate when this eared grebe decided to swim right past me. As he swam, he saw a fly on the water and successfully lunged at it. He was by himself most of the time but did spend some of his time following a larger western grebe around

Took a short drive a few days ago, leaving before sunrise, and came across this scene. A large herd of elk were moving away from the road with the early morning light hitting the peaks of the Madison range. Since these weren’t elk from the national park and aren’t habituated to people, I knew if I got out of the car they were gone. But I didn’t have the angle I needed from the car window, so I opened the sunroof and poked up through it, using the roof to support my lens. The elk were fairly cooperative and the encounter really got my adrenaline pumping. What a great start to the day!

Good news and bad news…
As of today, I am once again able to accept, print, and ship orders! If you’ve ever wanted one of my prints, now is a great time as we certainly can use the orders! The bad news however, while Xanterra is planning on opening their Yellowstone operations on June 15th, all of my book signings for the summer have been canceled and the Old Faithful Inn will not be open. As far as I know, my prints and books will still be available for purchase possibly at Lake Hotel, but I won’t be doing my weekly signings anywhere in Yellowstone this summer. Please do what you can to support your local artists who make a living at what they do!

With backyard birding winding down now that the bears are out and active, I’ve spent some time going through photos from earlier in the year. This American goldfinch is one of my favorites, because I typically only photograph them in their “not as bright” winter plumage. But this male showed up a few weeks ago pretty much decked out in his summer colors and posed nicely for a few moments. I have to admit, I love it when that happens!

It’s late April and the bears are out. Cubs of the year will be out soon too, if they’re not already. While I know many are disappointed Yellowstone is closed, I think it’s a good thing. Not only are the animals getting a break from the early crowds but when cuties like these two show up, people tend to forget about social distancing and shoulder to shoulder crowds aren’t the best thing right now. We owe it to each other to be safe and to be responsible and do the right thing by everyone.

Here’s a couple of fox kit buddies to hopefully put a smile on your face.

I have to admit I haven’t felt very motived to post lately. When I came across this image again, I decided I wanted to share it since it always puts a smile on my face. I took this image many years ago and I don’t think I’ve shared it before. The fox kit was running back to the den because it’s mother had just shown up with a mouthful of goodies

I photographed somewhere around 15 species of birds in the backyard this winter, but brown creepers were certainly the toughest to get a decent photo. I kind of lucked into this photo as I was set up by a pine tree when this one landed near me and stayed still long enough for me to get this image.

Welcome to Sunday! I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. This image is from July 2019 at a local wildlife refuge. This short-eared owl was perched on a road sign along a very lightly traveled dirt road. I pulled over and, so as to not disturb it, opened my sunroof and photographed out of the top of the car. I was there for a quite a while and the bird was still perched when I left. I did see it eventually fly off from way day the road quite a while later. I was on a mission last summer to find and photograph short-eared owls and this bird was probably the most cooperative one I found.

Obviously, I’ve had a lot of time to stay at home and do some backyard birding. This time of year is always interesting because there’s a chance of early migrators coming through. This one surprised me though. It’s a common redpoll and summers adjacent to the Artic Ocean. In fact, they rarely come too far south and I haven’t seen one in several years. Every couple of years, they irrupt into the portions of north and central US. I was pretty excited when a pair of them showed up yesterday.