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Caribou and Reindeer

Tis the season of the Reindeer. After all, it’s hard to not notice them at this time of year. They make appearances in holiday movies, or on holiday greeting cards, and sometimes they are seen in Christmas tree lots as the featured animal. They appear on stage in plays or re-enactments and...

White-tailed Deer

The recent weather roller-coaster has found me stomping around the woods in search of rutting White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus). One week I am wearing a short-sleeved shirt and light-weight hiking shoes and the next week I am dressed in four layers and waterproof boots along with a hat...

Wild Turkey

Because of Thanksgiving, in my mind, the month of November and Turkeys are linked together. Of course, this is uniquely an American association due to our Thanksgiving holiday. So, at this time of year I like to turn my attention to the Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Let’s take...

Hummingbird Migration

            Well, it’s that time of year again. The count down is on and it is just a matter of a few precious days to a week or so before we we’ll say good-bye to one of our favorite avian backyard residents—the hummingbirds. Yes, the migration is...

Cicada Killer

I received a text the other day from my neighbor about a killer in our neighborhood. Immediately I was on alert and wanted to know more. After all, it’s not every day that a killer is reported in your neighborhood. The next text I got had a picture of the killer. This confirmed the...

Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel

The other day, I was out kicking around a natural area just enjoying nature with no particular agenda. I imagine a lot of my readers think that I am constantly on the hunt to capture the next wildlife image. While it’s true that I spend a lot of time “attempting” to capture...

Cowbirds

Nature has so many different ways to accomplish just one task--reproduction.  At this time of year, it seems that everywhere I look I see are baby birds. It’s a blizzard of baby birds being fed by their parents. From a small backyard pond to the large expansive lakes and wetlands to...

Nesting Turtles

I often find the most interesting things in nature are the most mundane aspects of nature. For example, I am sure many of you are seeing turtles crossing roads or perhaps crawling across your yard. Why do these reptilian friends do this at this time of year and not at other times? Where are they...

Bank Swallow

In any profession there is often a lot of jargon and acronyms thrown around to express a point or to not use long cumbersome names. In the bird world, there are a ton of these, such as GHO standing for Great Horned Owl. In fact, there is an official abbreviation for all 10,000 plus species of...

Ruffed Grouse

I am no stranger to getting up at zero dark thirty. But when my alarm goes off at 4 am after not sleeping most of the night, it’s getting harder and harder to drag myself out of bed. I was reminded of this recently when my alarm went off, at 4 am, and I needed to get up to photograph a...