2010 has been a great year, providing me many opportunities to continue learning about nature photography. I’ve been fortunate this year to photograph in fantastic places like Arches, Canyonlands, Shenandoah, Great Smoky Mountains and Zion National Parks, along with many other state and local parks. I wanted to put in one more day of photography during 2010 so I took an early drive to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge near Cambridge, MD. I was hoping to find some Bald Eagles and my very first photograph happened to catch an eagle sitting at the top of a tree as the morning sky turned pink.

I saw several Bald Eagles in the Refuge but I was surprised to encounter a huge number of Snow Geese that had stopped to rest on the ice covered waters of Little Blackwater River. I waited for their eventual “take-off” as the entire flock leaps into the air at once with every bird in a frenzy of flight.  It is quite a spectacle of sight and sound.

Blackwater NWR maintains an ‘eagle-cam’ which allows anyone on the Internet to watch the progress of nest building, egg hatching and fledging of young eagles.  Already, a pair of Bald Eagles has begun building their nest (that’s one of the eagles on the eagle-cam platform below).  You can watch for yourself at this link: Blackwater NWR Eagle-Cam

I’m looking forward to 2011 with trips planned to the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington and Glacier National Park in Montana.  I have a lot more ‘learin’ to do…

Happy New Year Everyone !!

Winter began this week and we have seen some light snow here in northern Virginia and are expecting a little more in the next day or two.  I have been taking it easy lately, battling the ‘cold that will not die’ but I ventured out briefly today to take some images of the leaves of Fall, now in various states of deterioration, being covered by the Winter season.

While I’ve been stuck indoors, I finished putting together my second annual book of my favorite images from the year.  To see a sample on the Blurb website, just click the link below.

MWP2010

My alarm clock rang early this morning because I wanted to visit a couple of wildlife refugees in Delaware.  My first stop was at Prime Hook NWR to see the hundreds of Snow Geese that have arrived from the Canadian Arctic to winter here in the Mid-Atlantic.  They took flight from the water soon after sunrise and flew inland.  As I drove to my next destination, I encountered the Snow Geese circling over open farmland, it was fascinating to watch them as they filled the sky.

My next stop was Bombay Hook NWR, about 41 miles north of Prime Hook. Bombay Hook is also a stop for thousands of migratory birds on the east coast.  An 8.5 mile loop allows you to drive through the refuge presenting many opportunities to see a variety of ducks, geese, hawks and bald eagles. The tidal salt marsh here is vital habitat for wildlife.  The backlighting on these marsh plants below made a nice composition.

Driving your car around the refuge provides a great blind to photograph from.  I was able to get very close to a number of birds just by staying inside my car and shooting out the side window.  The hawk below was sitting in a tree almost directly above my car.

This Snow Goose (a common dark morph, known as a ‘Blue Goose’) was feeding on some grass near the road and paid no attention to my car.

I was able to sit and watch this Great Blue Heron hunt for food for a fairly long time.  The car was a perfect ‘vehicle’ for observing the wildlife throughout the day at the refuge.

Entering the wetlands this morning at Huntley Meadows park, all seemed quiet.  I was surprised to see quite a variety of ducks here, all too busy feeding to make much noise.  There were large numbers of Canada Geese but also quite a few Mallard pairs (female above, male below).

There were also Blue-winged and Green-winged Teals, American Coots, Northern Shovelers and at least one pair of Hooded Mergansers.

Our tour with Joseph Rossbach concluded this morning at Valley of Fire.  We climbed up the rocky hillside to get a close-up view of one of the park’s famous formations, Elephant Rock (it really does look like an elephant!). Then Joe led us to a lesser known area to view the fantastic patterns and colors within the park.

This more out-of-the-way  area is rarely visited by the majority of those who come to Valley of Fire and the solitude and silence of this spot was very peaceful.

The last shot of the day came as we passed through a small canyon where we noticed that one side was reflecting the color of the morning sun light and the other shaded side held a cooler color and this became my final composition of the tour.

This tour was exhilarating AND exhausting and without a doubt, a great photography experience.  I highly recommend you consider a workshop or tour with Joe Rossbach if you are interested in improving your photography. My collection of photographs from the tour can be found in Zion and Southwest in my Image Library.

We decided to return to the Rimrocks and Toadstools area for this morning’s sunrise shoot. I got low to the ground to frame one of the ‘toadstools’ using a hole in this weathered rock. The scene certainly took on the appearance of an alien world.

We then headed to our last photography destination of the tour, the Valley of Fire, a state park which is located 55 miles northeast of Las Vegas.  It was the first state park created in Nevada and contains some 36,000 acres.  The park is known for a number of natural features but what first strikes you is the range of colors in the sandstone.

I was particularly interested in the purple and magenta colors that run through many of the formations in the park.  We’ll be back here in the morning for the last shoot of the tour.

As you turn off  Highway 89 in southern Utah heading towards Arizona, if you look carefully, past the Coyote Buttes area, you will see a block of solitary white sandstone jutting up from the horizon. This was our destination for today, a place called White Pocket.  It is a remote location requiring the right vehicle and a knowledgable driver to negotiate the rocks and deep sands that make up the path to this place, and it takes a couple of hours to complete the journey.  What lies within this block of sandstone is purely out of this world.

You first encounter ‘brain rock’ (shown above) and as you continue to hike in, your own brain can hardly place what your eyes see in any kind of context.

The swirling rock formations are like nothing you have ever seen before and the colors and striations seem to be unique everywhere you look.

Even though White Pocket is relatively not that large of an area, you could spend weeks (months, years?) photographing here and not capture all of the compositional possibilities. Our guide, Joe Rossbach, asked me what I thought of this place and all I could do was stand there, speechless.

Joe had been here before under cloudless skies and he was hoping that today would provide some nice dramatic clouds. Well, he got his wish as the clouds rolled in. At sunset, we were treated to a fantastic view as the whole sky lit up in a deep orange, adding more drama to the already incredible scenery.