New Work

Toucan On a Limb

The bill of this Chestnut-Mandibled Toucan makes up one-third of the bird’s length. Toucans, like this bird from Costa Rica, cut off fruit and pods with their saw-edged bills and then toss their heads back before swallowing.

Rough-Legged Hawk II

Rough-Legged Hawks can often be seen near the Jackson Hole Elk Refuge sitting on fence posts and perch hunting. They scan the empty spaces by the roadside looking for voles, mice, and other prey. And then, they pounce!

Straight On

The melodious sound of a Barred Owl hooting is ubiquitous in Southern Swamps. Barred Owls prefer to nest in deep woods with big trees like the Spanish Moss covered giants that surround Lake Martin in Louisiana.

Miles To Go

For over a thousand years, Sandhill and some Whooping Cranes have followed an ancient migration path called the Central Flyway. This hour-glass-shaped fly route stretches from South America to the Arctic regions of North America. Happily for the exhausted Cranes, the flyway bottlenecks in Nebraska’s Platte River Valley where there are plenty of open corn fields and resting spots in and near the Platte River.

Mediterranean Sea Horses

For generations, Camargue horses have adapted and thrived in the coastal marshes and coastlines of the French Mediterranean.

Observer B+W

The Spectacled Owl is a resident breeder in Costa Rica and other rainforests in the neotropics. They are not easily seen because they
hide in the dense foliage of the rainforest when they nest or hunt.

MaMa's Boy

African Elephants form strong family bonds. Nothing is more important to the group than protecting and teaching their smallest family members.
This cute baby was photographed with his group members in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania.

On the Plains II

Spanish explorers first brought "painted" or two-toned horses to North America. Spanish breeds like the Barb, Andalusian, and Arabian eventually formed the foundation for the wild mustang herds found throughout the American West.

Local Barred Owl Colorized

Barred Owls are territorial. They breed and nest in the same general area year after year. This stylized photo is of my neighborhood owl in
Western NC.

Hunting Fox Portrait

Red Foxes in Yellowstone have to brave severely harsh winters. To survive, they use their acute hearing to pinpoint prey under the snow. After locating, they leap up into the air and pounce head first into the snow, pinning their prey down with their paws and catching it with their teeth.

Headed Towards the Thermals

Three Bison make their way across a thermal field as they push on to
hot springs where they can warm up during the harsh winters in Yellowstone National Park.

Evening Call

A Barred Owl, photographed in the swamps around Lake Martin, LA, calls to her mate.

Silent Flight

A Barred Owl, photographed in the swamps of Lake Martin in
Louisiana glides across black water channels on silent wings.

All White

I was stunned by the stark, ethereal beauty of this all-white Peacock I saw while photographing birds in Louisiana in this past May.

Most of us have seen an Indian Peacock with iridescent, blue-feathered bodies and a 70-inch long trailing "train" of feathers dotted with blue, gold and green eyespots. When displaying, typical Peacocks are a riot of regal color.

Peacocks with an inherited defect in pigment cells called leucism didn't get the full cellular memo that color is required. Leucistic birds lack the cells responsible for melanin production. Melanin pigment, which causes feathers to appear dark colored, is absent.

The Peacock in the photograph is fully leucistic, meaning that there is reduction in all types of pigment resulting in a completely pale or white bird. With leucistic animals, eye color will be normal since eye development occurs separately from other areas of the bod

Generations

The oldest and wisest female in an Elephant heard teaches younger Elephants all about survival in the African bush.

Gator Stance

A joke told by residents of Lake Martin, LA goes like this:
How do you know if there are Alligators in any body of water in Louisiana? You put your hand in the water and, if the water is wet, you know for sure that Alligators are in there!

First Steps

After watching this Grant's Gazelle give birth for an hour, I was doubly
rewarded by this intimate moment when the fawn first stood with the help of his adoring Mom.

Coming Home

The white horses of the Camargue are known to love the water so much that in France, they are called "horses of the sea". They are often found galloping through the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

Chrome Ever More

California Chrome is one of the top-rated race horses of all time, racking up over $13 million dollars in prize money during his racing career. I photographed Chrome at Taylor Made Farms in Lexington, KY.

Cheetah Couple At Rest

Cheetah couples rest most of the day in the shade of acacia trees before they hunt for food. This pair was photographed in the Serengeti
Mara.

At Attention

The Gray Crowned Crane population in Tanzania and Eastern Africa is severely compromised. There are many threats to the survival of the species including habitat loss due to wetland degradation, human disturbance, live capture, and chick and egg collection for the commercial trade.

Anan Fishing Bear

In Tongass National Forest, two keystone species of Alaskan wildlife meet each year at Anan Creek. Pink Salmon fight their way up the creek to their ancestral spawning grounds and bears gather on the banks by the hundreds to feast on the captive bounty.

Around the Bend

Finding food in the deep of winter is tough for all carnivores, but if you're a Bobcat ambush hunting along the Madison River near Yellowstone, the risk is worth taking when Ducks and Swans are on the menu.

All Eyes

Did you ever wonder what all of those vibrantly colored eye-shaped spots on a male peafowl's impressive train are called and what are they there for? I was curious about this myself, so I turned to the writings of Charles Darwin to find out the answers.

Darwin speculated that the dazzling teal eyespots, called Ocelli, evolved because of sexual selection. The more eyespots a male peafowl has, the more attractive he is to the peahens. Because he is that much more attractive to the ladies, the more he gets to mate, thus passing on the eyespot genes to future generations. Newer research suggests that female peafowl prefer the eye-shaped spots on males to any other shape. They're just so excitingly attractive!

Double Curl Ram B+W

Scottish Blackface sheep far outnumber the 2000 inhabitants on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. People are far less visible than the ubiquitous sheep that roam free on open moors, hillsides and marshy areas. Both male and female sheep have horns, but Blackface rams are prized for their large, spiraling horns. Most of the time, the ram’s spirals curl away from his face allowing for unhindered vision. But occasionally, the horns can grow into the sheep’s face which cuts off his ability to see. When there is an inward spiral, farmers have to come to the aid of the ram by cutting away the horns so that vision is restored.