Category Archives: Birds

Photos of birds, bald eagles, tundra swans, hawks, waterfowl, wading birds and more.

Bald eagle, feeding on snowshoe hare, Alaska

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Bald eagle, feeding on snowshoe hare, Alaska.
Alaska bald eagle photo.

Hey Folks,

Who said bald eagles only eat fish. This one has a snowshoe hare and seems to be more than happy with it.

So far, I’ve seen my first grizzly of the year, my first black bear of the year, bull moose, cow moose, beaver and some other white thing that raced across a road in front of me, that I have no idea what it was .. larger than a housecat, with a tail, snow white, and running for it’s life.

A mystery.

That’s the mammals. None of which I photographed. I do have, however, some bird images. You’ll be seeing a number of birds on this blog over the next week.

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Trumpeter Swans on Ice, Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska

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Trumpeter swans stand on ice, waiting for it to melt, on a frozen lake in Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

From my birds of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park feature.

So spring’s finally here, and summer’s just around the corner. Well, so thought the trumpeter swans, anyway. They headed north, arrived, and trumpeted the standard ‘What The Heck?” when they saw ice everywhere.

This family of 4 trumpeter swans were amongst the first to arrive – good flyers, I expect, as I doubt they took a shortcut. I’m sure they’re about as keen as I am for the ice and snow to melt and some warmer weather. I was surprised to see a couple of youngsters with them – what a way to start your life, a crazy migration thousands of miles north

to the land of ice and snow. The youngsters are last year’s chicks, I didn’t realize they stayed with their parents more than a year.

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Bald eagle, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

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Bald eagle, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.

Another bird! I haven’t had much luck with the weather for shooting landscapes, but I’ve been fortunate to get a few bird photos instead. This bald eagle photo was taken along the Athabasca River in Alberta’s Jasper National Park, just north of Banff, Canada.

After a crappy morning (I was minutes late to Moraine Lake for sunrise, and missed the VERY brief glow of good light on the peaks there by mere seconds), I took off again and headed north, this time to Jasper National Park, one of my favorite places.

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Great Gray Owl Photo, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada.

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Great Gray Owl, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada.

Hey Folks

Hola, from the road. I’m currently in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. I love this part of the world, but I don’t enjoy the crowds. I had to come in to the town of Banff today, to check some email, and do some errands. I can’t wait to finish, and get back out into the mountains. The crowds here drive me crazy. The traffic is insane, made worse by a bunch of road construction being undertaken right now.

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Rough-legged Hawk, Canning River, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

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Rough-legged Hawk, Canning River, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

The Rough-legged hawk is a close relative of the red-tailed hawk that many people are familiar. The Rough-legged hawk (Buteo lagopus) travels to the northern reaches of the globe, and spends the summer on the arctic tundra and in the taiga forest of the far north. It’s a large hawk, with both light and dark forms common. Continue reading →

Tundra Swan, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

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Another Tundra Swan, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

I wanted to follow my previous post with this photo, showing the environment and landbase the tundra swan lives within.This is the same bird, in the same pond, from almost the exact same spot – but this photo was taken with a wider lens (Nikon 70-200mm).

I love tight, close-up portraits of wildlife (and people) but I always enjoy a photo showing the subject in place. I think of ‘in place’ as reference to the greater scope of what we mean by ‘nature’. When we closely consider the world around us, we begin to see that these creatures and features we share this existence with do not live in isolation, and aren’t, in fact, separate from one another.

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Tundra Swan Photos, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

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Tundra swan, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

On my last evening in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, camped out on the edge of the coastal plain by the Beaufort Sea, I hiked countless hours trying to find subjects to photograph. The light was magical, from about 10:00pm until I went to bed at 4:30am.

Unfortunately, I had a tough time finding subjects to shoot. I saw a few foxes, but didn’t get close enough to any for photos. I saw my first ever snowy owl, an unbelievably beautiful, yet extremely skittish bird that I never got close to.

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