I have so many raccoon shots from my camera trap but rarely post them. Here’s one of the backyard locals from May of 2021 when they were a bit more active. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 17mm) ISO 500, f/14 at 1/160th of a second, Cognisys camera box, trail monitor and remote flash units.
It’s always hard to show perspective when posting dik dik’s. They’re so small, but without any reference it’s hard to tell just how small they really are. Same goes with this image, but for some reason, perhaps the angle, this Kirk’s dik dik kind of gets close to illustrating their diminutive fifteen-inch height. Photographed in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 250, f/5.6 at 1/1600th of a second.
Baby stump-tailed macaques can look like infants and senior citizens at the same time. This little guy was hanging out with a few friends just outside of Kaeng Krachan National Park on the Malay Peninsula of Thailand. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 200mm), ISO 1600, f/4 at 1/800th of a second.
On the African savanna you find your fun wherever you can. In this case, two cheetah cubs found it in the form of elephant dung. A good time was had by all. Photographed in Samburu National Reserve in Kenya. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm lens, ISO 450, f/5.6 at 1/800th of a second.
Like most people in the northeast, we got dumped on with snow last night. I haven’t been to the woods to check on my camera traps yet, but here’s one from the last time we had snow (and it wasn’t that much). A cottontail stopping by for a self-portrait back in late March. Oddly, I see rabbits in the yard most every night, but they very rarely show up at the traps. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 20mm lens, ISO 500, f/14 at 1/250th of a second, Cognisys camera box, trail monitor and remote flash units.
Dwarf mongooses are a fairly common sight around safari camps. A bunch of them were scurrying around in the woods surrounding our camp in the Masai Mara of Kenya on our recent trip. On the technical side of things, this is a good example of a very high ISO image (12800) that has minimal noise thanks to an even and proper exposure. If I had shot at a lower ISO and then tried to lighten it in post processing, it would have had a lot more noise. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 12800, f/5.6 at 1/320th of a second.
I’ve never posted this before (mainly because I find it to be just an average shot of a lemur — I should have gotten all the way onto the ground and positioned myself for a cleaner background). That said, it’s the shot that would later become the silhouetted ring-tailed lemur icon in my logo. I was scrolling through my old files and came across it and thought I’d share it now. I think it was about eight years ago when I first started using it in my logo, but it was taken back in 2007 in southern Madagascar. Nikon D200 with Nikkor 80-200mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 100, f/3.5 at 1/1250th of a second.
Boat-billed herons are characterized by their thick, and apparently boat-shaped beaks. But that’s not the only thing that makes them unusual. They are also strictly nocturnal, unlike most other herons and wading birds. I photographed this one on a night boating excursion in the northern Amazon basin of Peru. Nikon D500 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 800, f/7.1 at 1/200th of a second, Godox V860iii flash.
I started the year with a trip to northern Minnesota and got a few good looks at a northern hawk owl.
In February, I was featured on a follow-up story on Fox 61 News.
In March, I ran into a few regulars down in Florida, including a burrowing owl…
And a great blue heron with breakfast.
In April, I traveled to Peru for the second time in two years to see what I could find in the northern Amazon basin. I certainly wasn’t expecting a dark morph of a southern tamandua.
I also got great looks at sloths, including this rather hungry three-toed sloth.
On my trip to Peru in 2022, I missed out on the Uakari poison frog, but I found him this time.
I also finally found Mowgli, a rather friendly woolly monkey.
Back home in June, I found a few suburban beaver dams near my house.
And was honored to have my image of a leatherback hatchling on the cover of National Wildlife magazine’s summer issue.
We led another tour to Africa in late June/early July where I captured these rhinos on day one in Kenya.
Toward the end of the trip, it was back to Uganda for mountain gorillas, including this playful two-year old.
My camera trap continued to record all the backyard action, and in November captured this young black bear out for a stroll in the middle of the day.
Here’s to another great year in 2024.
This Patagonian gray fox was taking a break from chewing on a bone in order to scratch an itch. Photographed in the Chilean side of Patagonia in Torres del Paine National Park. Nikon D500 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 350mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/640th of a second.