When I first learned that the Pied-billed Grebe can submerge just like a submarine going straight down rather than diving, I wanted that photograph. That was a whole lot easier to dream of than to execute. Pied means multi-colored and if you look at the bill, you can see how it was named Pied-billed Grebe. This truly small water bird tends to be shy keeping its distance specifically from wildlife photographers. Late one evening at Green Cay a couple of weeks back, this individual was highly focused on some food source right next to the boardwalk. It seemed not to notice me, which was lucky as it was frame filling. It was a dark hole so the ISO was cranked up to 3200 just to get 1/60 shutter speed. The grebe was actively going down and chasing its prey. It ignored me and I tried to move to keep up with its chasing. The water was shallow enough to see it darting back and forth under the surface. That would give me a little window into where I should expect it to pop back up and make a possible click. The twenty minutes of entertainment only garnished a dozen sharp images but it just takes one to make me smile. This one made me smile, a pied moment.

Wood Storks are a massive bird, much bigger than, say a Great Blue Heron. Starting in the late 1800s, they were shot in mass for their gorgeous breeding plumes for ladies fashions. Nearly wiped off the planet, a few survived. Today, through the efforts of many, they are up for delisting from the endangered species act. It’s quite the success story!

My first bird photography trip to Florida decades ago was specifically for the Wood Stork. They weren’t easy to find back then, and when we finally did, they weren’t in a location that was conducive for photography. But I was hooked and in the years since, have spent many days at their rockeries. My time at Wakadahatchee last week was spectacular, in large part because I could just watch Wook Stork’s antics. This time of year, nest platforms are being built, and pair bonds are being renewed. We’re so lucky we have them to watch and enjoy. You gotta love a happy ending for the prehistoric survivor!

Like most beginning wildlife photographers, one of the birds I photographed was the friendly, neighborhood Great Blue Heron. This large bird found around the globe is, for the most part, very forgiving to us newbees. They let us make all sorts of mistakes, which most of the time do no more than make the GBH move off a short distance. Their large size permits us to capture nice images even though we don’t have the longest glass in the store. So it is only right that as we get better, we revisit our early friends and do photographically right by them. How?

Start with making them the star of the photograph, and we do that by being very picky with the background. With that long lens you now have in your bag of confidence, move left or right, up or down just enough to make the GBH pop in the frame. You do that when you have that gorgeous soft light. Light that brings out all the detail yet illuminates the elegance of this magnificent bird. While it might be common, with you since you, we, first started out in wildlife photography, it’s a great subject that teaches new lessons every time we have in the viewfinder. That’s why it’s wildlife photographer’s best friend!

These pint size balls of fluff are one of the funniest critters you’ll spend time with! The Burrowing Owl is unique in so many ways, tops is its living in “burrows,” underground. Whether modifying an abandoned burrow or digging its own, this diurnal owl can fly with ease yet prefers to walk and live under the earth. Their burrow complex can have many tunnels, a couple of entrances and placed is the oddest of places. That brings me to these goofballs.

We found about a dozen (hard to count when they play wack-a-mo) at a sports complex last week. Taking care not to disturb them the first time we ventured to their burrows, we were quickly rewarded by their presence. As the sun slowly sank in the west, it got later in the day. School was soon out and soccer practice was in the throws of starting up. Soon, green soccer balls were rolling on the field and up to the burrows. My first thought was, “There goes the shooting, the owls will go underground and that will be it.” I was so wrong, rather, the goofy owls seemed to be watching the balls roll within inches of their burrow and continued to watch as a munchkin ran over to kick it back unto the field! Seriously, they seem to be actively watching the soccer practice! They are a hoot to watch, even more to photograph and at this sports complex left me thinking the earth has eyes.

I love Wood Storks! They are such a large, goofy, gorgeous, gregarious bird that is a wildlife photographer’s best friend. When I have the opportunity to photograph them, I’m all over it. And when they are the right height to place the morning sun behind them, I can’t move fast enough to find the right individual that morning for the brief sun shoot. What’s the right one? I want the sun just as it says hello for the day. I want a Stork that is not sleeping, somewhat animated. Then I need a place to stand to merge the two elements in the frame. Yesterday morning I got really close to what I’m wanting, excited to see what today brings as I have a real bad fireball attraction.

All the blood you see here is all there ever was. The silence you hear from the photo is all the sound present just seconds before the cow took its last breath. The Gray Wolf is a very efficient ender of life, it was hard to tell if the cow even felt all those jaws barring down on it. I’m not sure what I was expecting to see, or hear in the takedown. Perhaps more like the lions taking down the zebra when we were in Africa perhaps. If you weren’t looking in the right direction, the peace and calm that is Yellowstone in winter are all your senses presented. It has been a few weeks since the takedown and yet I can’t stop examining the photos, thinking through the moment. That one cow fed twenty-four wolves as well as permitted the rest of the Bison herd to move off to safety. It’s a process that’s brutal and beautiful all at the same time. It keeps me rather focused, it’s just seconds now.