Our biggest hummer, the Rivoli’s is perhaps our most striking. This young one is still growing out its adult plumage but it gives you a hint of the glory that’s coming. It’s just stunning.

These photos were taken with a simple rig as the hummer freely come and go to the feeder. The dual flash is reflected off all that color which is why we can see it. And while technology has made it so much easier, it still takes time to get the frame. Them suckers are fast! And it’s only two months old!

Life is one continuing lesson and for Kodiak Brown Bears, those lessons are really concentrated in the first 3-4 years. Mom spends as much time sharing the right thing to do as much as the wrong thing. The process has always fascinated me as the lessons can be literally, life or death or as simple as, don’t eat or play with that. Mom is at one time the most affectionate, playful parent you can ever imagine. And the next moment, incredibly harsh! She concentrates into those brief years where to find food in May, June, July etc, the different plants, fish and the like. Shares with them what’s fun to play with and what will kill them and to be afraid of. The whole time, she is their great protector those first years, as fierce a protector as they will ever find. Then in their late third or fourth year summer after learning all there is to learn about their home, mom rudely and at times nastily tells them to go away and to go make their own home somewhere else! It’s a circle of life and it fascinates me. I’m ever so grateful they permit me to peak in and witness it all, allowing my camera to capture some of the moments.

If you’re interested on feet on the ground, lens time with Kodiak Browns, we have one opening in our sixth trip to Kodiak in May, 2024. If you want to see if you are made of the right stuff, give Sharon a call 406 .240 .3503 to see if you’re a fit!

Like species such as the Bald Eagle, Northern Gannets don’t have their adult plumage until year four and later. They pair for life and start nesting after age four. Their plumage is variable until then (see below). Avian flu went through the Cape Mary Bird Ecological Reserve in 2022 like wildfire killing 20-40% of the 40,000 Gannets. “The Beach was covered with carcasses” the biologist told me. With the mortality rate, this year a number of “younger” birds paired up and were stepping up with the older birds now missing would have been breeder. How this will turn out only time will tell.

Above is the one individual I really loved to photograph, who I called “Piano Keys” because of the pattern on its wings. It’s a three to four year old. Almost is pure white. Below you will see the various age classes with two year old on far left, three year old, 3-4 year old and 4-20 year old on far right. Once they leave the nest, they “crash” land into the ocean where their flight instruction begins. They survival after that is pretty certain, unless of natural disaster strikes. But like all, experience counts for a lot of that longevity, you could simply say, better with age.

 

Perched on the point looking straight down the four hundred foot cliff, peering through the fog at the Atlantic below, I was incredibly excited! When I started out decades ago pursuing my passion for birds, I studied Peterson’s Guide to North American Birds every night. Every night! There was one bird that stood out as just cool, one I wanted to see but never thought I would, the Razorbill. A pelagic bird that only comes to shore to breed, it was nowhere I could ever imagine being. On this morning, I was told there was one pair present in the fog. One pair amongst literally 40,000 birds on the rocky cliffs. What were the odds of seeing it? What were the odds of getting glass on it? No matter, all the other birds took a background in my stare.

Then, literally within minutes there was the pair! Two Razorbills on a ledge, their nest platform (they use rock for a nest). Over the next five days we came to find there are approximately 1600 Razorbills nesting at Cape Mary Bird Ecological Reserve but the vast majority of them are around the corner where we cannot get to. That didn’t matter to me because as I always say when it comes to bird photography, it just take one! Nesting season is in full swing which means lots of activity. The nest you see below is the only nest site we could see, but there were at least three others below our feet tucked in on the cliff we were standing on. We could see them fly in and then vanish below our feet so we knew they were there but we couldn’t see them.

Then one afternoon one blessed us by perching for a very short period on a point of rock right in front of us (the photo above). My dear friend Eric brought back a much better shot than I did of this moment but I was over the moon just seeing a Razorbill so close and intimate. Even though it was for just a few minutes, it’s what keeps me going out in search of species I would love to see and photograph. It’s so well worth the 40 years!