Common Ravens mate for life, the male is the smaller one on the left. Sharon & I call them Edgar and have a deep affection for them because all the decades we have enjoyed their antics. Whenever we see them, wherever, we stop and watch. Last week was no different when this pair seemed to having quite the conversation. At least, the male was busy talking, the female was just listening. It was a long conversation.

I’ve been desiring and chasing photos of bird’s breath for a long time. It sounds so simple until that’s your focus. This last spring I spend many hours for example with Yellow-headed Blackbirds trying for the shot. You basically need a dew point low enough so you can see your breath. Then, you need a darkish background so the breath can be seen. The most important thing is you need to lay the finger on the shutter release. The breath travels real fast and catches the right “puff (cause some shot they appear to have been smoking cigarettes). It was simply a delightful twenty minutes but I’m left wondering what was the conversation?

It was a spectacular morning! The Wapiti Lake Pack was out in force in Hayden Valley. When we arrived on the scene, the pack had focused on a small cow herd by some pines. It was a stand-off until one of the cows tried to make a break for it. I would give anything to understand what was going through their minds because what unfolded was nothing short of stunning. The cows raced across the snow-covered sage. At one point, two cows turned doing a 180 and chasing the wolves as the rest of the herd kept moving. There were at least two yearlings in the small herd. They then turned and ran back to the herd. The wolves were not going to be denied. The whole mass ran behind a small ridge, the trailing cow had one wolf on its rear as they all disappeared for a moment. Then a moment later that cow had done a 90 and was running perpendicular from the rest of the herd which continued to crash through the snow and up the ridge.

That cow’s fate was now sealed. I wonder, did the cow sacrifice itself for the rest of the herd? Did it know its move had sealed its fate? From our brief time, it seemed as healthy as the rest of the herd. Within ten minutes it was all over. The cow had nine wolves feasting on it while the rest of the herd was back to grazing. Over the next ninety minutes, we watched 23 wolves chow down until there was only a head and a rib cage left. It was live drama playing out on the Yellowstone plain. I’d never witnessed a takedown and kill, it was amazing biology to see!

If you look at the chase photo above, you see the wolf below in the pack of the attack pack. She gorged for about twenty minutes, and they laid down and got cleaned up. It then just went of a long walk. She ended up behind us, overlooking all the folks on the road, the kill, and the pack off to the east. It’s like she was taking it all in, the wonder of wolves.

The pursuit of a “bucket list” photo can be a real driving force in one’s photography. So it is with me and owls. I’ve been very fortunate to photograph every owl species in NoAm except the Sawhet with some species quite extensively. But never enough for my passion for these amazing creatures. It all started long ago with this species in Yellowstone when I captured, on film, two clicks, just two clicks of an individual far off on the edge of a clearing. Oh, I’ve had many opportunities with them in CA, OR, MT, WY since, but they all seem fleeting. That is because the nature of owls, is fleeting.

Then this past week I was blessed with an afternoon, over four hours with one individual and it was simply, exceptional! The fact it slept for half of the time was great as it afforded time to just take it all in. From its size, I think it was a male, and having fed quite often, it was quite content. Once it woke up, it was then back on the hunt. I was fortunate to see it go down in the snow twice and downing a vole in a single swallow. In the lower photo, it had just moved to this new ‘perch” as they are able to land on the smallest of twigs. It stared with great intensity straight ahead for some time. Then, without a clue it launched, did a complete 180, landed on a vole, and munched it. Amazing, simply amazing! I’ve spent a lot of time with owls over my career and after these four hours, it feels like just the beginning!

Shaking off the softly falling snow, the Mountain Chickadee waits its turn to dive into the feeder. Along with the Black-capped Chickadees, Nuthatches, and the like, they come in waves about every fifteen minutes. It’s a lot of fun to spend time with them at the feeders but what I’m really attempting is to find where they spend the night. Chickadees pile in to a cavity together at night sharing space and body heat to combat the extreme temps. Despite our best efforts, Sharon & I have yet to find the one cavity they prefer. We have just too many options for them to use shaking off the cold.

The Vermillion Flycatcher is a small flycatcher of our desert riparian zones. You can find them as far north as Phoenix (and a couple near Palm Springs) but otherwise, they are found mostly south of the border. Their name fits them to a Tee! This male has its full vermillion plumage that just glows. And they fly catch for their meals. They launch from a perch heading towards their prey, snatch it in mid-air, and then land on their perch looking for their next meal which might be just seconds away. They are most active early morning, and late evening when their prey is active. This basic biology helps you find them but photographing them, you just need a little more trivia.

As the series of photographs below depicts, they can be predictable. As in, I photographed this same individual five days in a row at the same time of day working the same series of perches. The top photo is one perch and the bottom series is another. If you look closely at the bottom photos, you can see the tiny gnats it’s feeding on. So once you find the flycatcher, you just need to watch its pattern and you’ll know what perch to set up on. They are so cute, so much fun to watch, and enjoyable to photograph. You’ll quickly get hooked on our fierce little fireball flycatcher.

The desert is called a desert because typically when looking for critters it can seem pretty deserted! This is so true in the winter. There are thankfully some exceptions and we’re at one of those right now. The Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch is this man-made oasis that has the most amazing collection of birds in the winter. A water reclamation facility, it was turned into a birding paradise attracting some incredibly photographable birds. I’m so far up to 43 species in four days! One of the reclusive birds is the Gamble’s Quail. They are all over the Preserve, you see them dart from bush to bush, and you hear them in their hiding place chuckling as you go by, but actual glass time is rare. This male “guard” picked this perfect perch after we’d been standing in place for a while photographing a Verdin. Not sure if it knew we were there, didn’t care we were there, but there it stood as its brood ran across the area moving from the safety of one shrub to another. It would look over its shoulder every so often to make sure we weren’t moving otherwise seemingly giving us to never mind. Once all the females were moved, he hopped down and followed them. It was a great moment making the whole Adventure just so sweet. We all felt we had won the winter desert gamble.