Creative photos of wildlife are often my goal, but rarely realized.

When we encounter an interesting critter in the field we first take a “record” shot (basically a snapshot). Now we at least have an identifiable image of the animal. Next we try and get a decent portrait. And once we have that, we can play around with exposures (silhouettes?), shutter speeds (often longer for blurs), wider angles (including some of the surrounding landscape) and different perspectives.

This is when it really gets fun! It is low percentage shooting to be sure, but the results are often much more interesting than another “bird on a stick” photo.

I’ve tried to get a photo like this with Red-winged Blackbirds and Sandhill Cranes, and always failed miserably. But when Ryan and I came upon the resident pair of Raven beggars in the Hayden Valley in October, I saw my chance for redemption! The sun was low and the ravens vocal…a perfect combo for the “backlit breath” shot. Only one problem…the wind was very slightly blowing…and in the wrong direction…so their breath was blowing behind their heads. And also, the biggest puff of air usually comes after the Raven is already closing its bill. This one was the best of the bunch.

I like the monochromaticity (is that a word?) of this image. The heavy snow softens the distracting maze of aspens. I did lighten the whole image so that the whites of the snow were just blowing out. The Bald Eagle is waiting for its turn at a deer carcass.

You have to crawl into the photo blind at grouse/prairie chicken leks about an hour before sunrise in order not to spook the birds. But what do you do while you wait for enough light to take action shots? Well, you can record audio of the “booming” birds…or you can take long (and I mean looooong) exposure panning shots.

I really like how this one turned out. The bird is sharp enough, and I love how its orange eyebrows and air sac contrasts beautifully with the blues of the predawn grass.

I had several nice “high key” images in 2019. I like this one of a flock of Tundra Swans winging their way through western Minnesota towards the tundra of northern Canada. I intentionally blew out the whites to make a more graphic image.

I really do have more than enough Bison shots after 10 years of shooting in Yellowstone. But when we rolled up to this herd along Fountain Flat Drive I saw a scene developing. I decided to back off on the focal length to create a “wildlife-in-the-landscape” shot. And as the sun sank, the grass began glowing and the rimlight on the shaggy beasts was perfect. Of course I do wish more had their heads up, but that is wishful thinking with grazing Bison.

Not sure anybody else will agree with me here, but I love the feel of this image. It is just 3 Ravens in aspen woods in a snowstorm, but it evokes something in me. Can’t describe it…I’ll have to ponder this more.

Can you find the hawk? Just a small silhouette of a Redtail contrasting with the stark dead tree silhouettes and backed by a gorgeous post sunset purple glow.

Another “high key” image where I increased the exposure and adjusted the levels to clip the whites to create a more graphic image. I like how the Hawk Owl’s yellow eyes and beak, rusty plumage and green lichens pop on the white background. The overcast sky was just a gray blah background so this is one trick to salvage such images.

Just a zebra in black and white. The zebra was in the sunlight, but its shelter was heavily shaded. Maybe not the most creative shot, but I love the graphic nature of the image…and what a striking animal!

I increased the exposure and elevated the whites, and also decreased the contrast by opening up the shadows in Lightroom.

The photo of the Bison is a result of me playing around with Lightroom controls and experiencing a “haccident”… a happy accident. By sliding the Luminance slider to 100 and the Detail slider to 0 under the Noise Reduction panel, you reduce the detail in the image and it creates a painterly quality to the photo. No Photoshop filters here! You will either love or hate this photo.

It was a stunning and unexpectedly massive goose migration in western Minnesota this April. I sounded like an old-timer telling Bridget and the kids about my experience…”You should’ve seen it…clouds of geese in the air. Skeins of geese overhead constantly. The air was filled with flocks!”

I played with some longer exposures while keeping the camera still. I did okay but the trees in the background aren’t as sharp as I’d like.

I was taking landscape photos and video with a DJI Phantom 4 Pro when I passed over these early-returning Trumpeter Swans. The ignored the “whirring bird” over their heads completely. You don’t often see wildlife from above. I also like the colors in the water.

NEXT UP…Top Ten Landscape photos of 2019

Here are my favorite mammal photos taken in 2019. It was a pretty good year for locating and photographing the “four-leggeds.”

I call this the “Group Back Rub.” This is from October when Ryan and I were enroute to Yellowstone. I took this while we were waiting for a Burrowing Owl to poke its head out of a prairie dog hole. Let’s just say that Ryan doesn’t appreciate prairie dogs or their high level of cuteness. If its his turn to drive, I really have to plead for him to stop for a prairie dog colony. I love photographing them and their antics.

Due to the deep snows and cold temps of the winter of 2018-19, many critters had a tough time finding food. At least 9 Bobcats were seen in the Sax-Zim Bog including a mom with 2 young. This was likely one of the young who camped out at a road-killed deer (note ribs in background). Bobcats are gorgeous and cute at the same time. A flash helped make this image Uber-sharp on a heavy overcast day.

This is the start of the snowstorm that closed Yellowstone down for 36 hours at the start of our time in the park. These three ruled the road between Madison and West Yellowstone.

While guiding a group from Outward Bound along the Warren Woessner Bog Boardwalk at the Warren Nelson Memorial Bog, this little guy popped out of a snow burrow and immediately emerged from a nearby hole. They are unbelievably fast critters! They hunt voles in their subnivean tunnels (their long thin body shape helps in this pursuit) but also feed on carcasses.

Ermine is the name for Least Weasel, Long-tailed Weasel and Short-tailed Weasel when in their winter white coat (this is a Short-tailed Weasel).

He stayed still for approximately 1.5 seconds but I was able to snap off a couple shots. It will be in the MN Conservation Volunteer magazine next month.

Something a bit different…an image from a zoo of a mama Baboon gently grooming her baby. Just darn cute!

This is a real “mammal in the landscape” photo. But I think it works because of the Red Fox looks sharp with the red of the willows, both of which contrast with the white of the symmetrical aspens.

Arriving in Teddy Roosevelt National Park we were greeted with this young Mule Deer buck browsing on some roadside shrubs. An early October snowstorm provided the backdrop.

Not a great photo…so why is it included here? Because it was the first Canada Lynx I’ve seen in the daylight…and I got some images! I lucked into this mellow cat up in the Superior National Forest in late March and got to spend a few minutes with it as it sauntered through the forest, then sat for a while before moving on in its never-ending search for Snowshoe Hares.

Read more and see the video HERE

Sometimes trying to predict where a wild animal might intersect with our own path pays off. We saw this Grizzly making its way across the North Fork of the Shoshone River just outside Yellowstone. She went into the woods so we moved up the road to a pullout and waited. And, believe it or not, she came out of the woods and headed in our direction. But it was not us she wanted to investigate, but rather a stand of Wild Rose whose hips were in full ripeness. It was a joy to watch her delicately plucking the fruits from the bush a couple at a time. Not once did she look in our direction, and when she was filled, she moved off.

Read more of this story HERE

On may way to photograph Loons one early summer morning I stumbled across a trio of romping Red Fox pups. I stayed with them for nearly an hour and enjoyed their antics. The loons could wait.

It seemed that only two would wrestle at a time, never all three. I took many photos and quite a bit of video.

This mellow Red Fox tolerated my presence for about 10 minutes as it hunted for voles along a minimum maintenance road and a farm field in the Sax-Zim Bog. Occasionally it would hear the sound of a vole under the crusty snow; its ears would rotate forward towards the sound, it would then rock back on its haunches, then launch high into the air to get enough force to break through the crusty snow to get a the vole.

Pine Martens LOOOVE peanut butter! And suet. And carcasses. So they are occasionally attracted to bird feeding stations in the Sax-Zim Bog. They use this food to supplement their normal diet of Ruffed Grouse, voles and squirrels. There were at least two, and possibly three coming to this feeder. They ignored the nearby birders and photographers for the most part. It is ALWAYS a treat to see these guys.

October 9, 2019

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

We awake to a couple inches of snow at our Madison Campground…but despite having to cook breakfast in the cold, dark, wet conditions, we are pumped! Snow in the landscape always makes for moody wildlife shots, and we were headed to a spot where two bull Moose had been spotted the day before.

But before we even made it to Norris, we were turned around by a ranger who said the mountain passes were closed with 18 inches of snow already. We turned around and headed for the geyser basins south of Madison. And now it was snowing HARD. After a look-see we saw nothing and then were turned around by another ranger. It was clear that we weren’t going anywhere today. A female ranger greeted us back near Madison Campground and said the park was closing and ALL of Yellowstone’s roads would be shut down for at least a day and a half.

Our choices were to stay at our campsite for 36 hours (not!) and freeze (temps were predicted to be below zero F. that night) OR shoot on our way out the West Yellowstone park entrance. We decided to pack up our tents and head towards Teddy Roosevelt. With only two-full days of shooting in Yellowstone, it was our shortest trip to the park ever.

The snow continued to pile up as we spotted this herd of cow elk along the Madison River.

A “car window” shot at 40 mph. No self-respecting photographer would post this shot, but I kind of like it in black and white. It reminds me of my early darkroom print days. It has a vintage feel to it.

We were finally told by the rangers to just keep moving, so we had no choice but to exit the park and head for Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Little did we know that the real adventure of this year’s trip would be just getting home! But more about that in the next post.

October 7-8, 2019

Day 3 (really our second full day of shooting) started as usual…Crawling out of the tent in the pre-dawn darkness, and boiling water and frying bagels on our Coleman stove. So after our breakfast of grits, oatmeal, bagels and cream cheese, we stuffed the “bear locker” with our cooking stuff and headed out to find….anything!

Ryan and I seem to remember more elk bugling near our Madison Campground in previous years, but we hadn’t been to the park in fall for seven years so maybe things had changed. We also did not see many elk, period. We realize the wolf packs have brought the Elk numbers down and more in balance with the park’s holding capacity, but we surely thought we’d see herds scattered about. But it was slim pickings.

A classic Yellowstone “animal in the landscape” shot. Steam from geothermal vents frame a lone bull Elk. After glassing the bull, Ryan said he noticed that he only had one antler! Must have lost it in a fight.

Just a nice portrait of a bull Elk near Mammoth

As the sun set over Fountain Flat Drive it illuminated this herd of Bison with neat golden backlight/rimlight. I love the peaceful painterly quality of these photos. They look even better if you view them full-screen.

We named this well-balanced tree along Soda Butte Creek, the “Zen Cottonwood.” Ryan first spotted it and it is a stately tree.

If you can’t find wildlife, you can always find scenery in Yellowstone National Park! Some details of the Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces.

We spent quite a while with this good looking bull Bison. My idea was to take a long exposure so the grass would blur but the Bison and background would be sharp. I took about 100 photos ranging from 1.6 seconds to 3.2 seconds and this is one of the few that turned out. BUT I don’t think my idea really came to fruition as there is not enough blur to the grass, and the sage doesn’t really blow in the wind. Oh well…You gotta try and experiment!

Coming soon….”Kicked out of Yellowstone”…due to snow, not our behavior!

Ryan Marshik and I moved our annual Yellowstone trip to fall this year. We hadn’t “done fall” since 2012. Only late April-early May spring trips from 2013-18. And this time we were NOT going to go through the relative torture of driving 17 hours straight to Yellowstone. No siree. This time we decided to make our first stop South Dakota’s Badlands National Park.

We had high expectations for beautiful landscapes and Bighorn rams, and a slight hope for a Burrowing Owl. Ryan had a report from a friend of a location from this summer where a Burrowing Owl had set up camp in a Prairie Dog town.

Well, we found the Prairie Dogs! Ryan doesn’t care for these rodents at all. But this is where the Burrowing Owl had been reported, so he tolerated them.

I love these “Group Backrub” photos. This is a family group of young ones and an adult.

Ryan’s “owl intel” paid off! The next morning we drove by the spot where his friend Sandra had seen one in the summer. I saw a very round blob and yelled, “Stop!” Sure enough, a Burrowing Owl was soaking up the first rays of sun on a cool morning. But as we stopped the car and fired off a few shots, it retreated to the safety of its abandoned Prairie Dog hole.

A few minutes later, we found a second Burrowing Owl about 100 yards away. This one was in perfect light, but crouched down when we stopped the car, and hid in the burrow when we got out.

We set up our tripods across the road from the owl and laid down to shoot at eye level. But this guy wasn’t having it. He’d only peek above the rim of his safe hidey-hole, and even after an hour and a half didn’t show any more of himself than the top of his head and two eyes. But a very neat experience none the less.

The 3 photos above are results of me playing around with Lightroom controls and experiencing a “haccident”… a happy accident. By sliding the Luminance slider to 100 and the Detail slider to 0 under the Noise Reduction panel, you reduce the detail in the image and it creates a painterly quality to the photo. No Photoshop filters here!

More and more I enjoy wildlife photos that show the critter in its landscape. Portrait photos can be stunning but they often don’t tell you anything about the environment that the animal lives in…or even what the animal is doing.

Bison and “bobby sock trees” (Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming) April 2018

I like the low saturation and placement of the Bison in relation to the “bobby sock” trees (white “socks” from exposure to the mineral rich waters in the geyser basin).

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 50mm f1.8 STM lens; 1/4000 second at f.8; ISO 160; hand-held]

Great Gray Owl sunrise (near Two Harbors, Minnesota) March 2018

It is sometimes hard to remember to “think wider” when taking wildlife photos. Our inclination is to put on our longest telephoto lens and get a tightly-cropped portrait. But sometimes wider is better. Great Gray Owls are often scanning the skies for any sign of enemies. They seem not to care for Ravens and Bald Eagles in particular. Not sure if this one actually saw something up in the sky.

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f5.6 L USM lens at 70mm; 1/1250 second at f.8; -1.33 ev; ISO 100; tripod]

Early-returning Great Blue Heron (Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota) April 16, 2018

The snowpack lasted a VERY long time last winter. My kids had to wear snowpants to school for a complete SIX MONTHS! (October 26 to April 24 or so). So this Great Blue Heron returned at its normal time, but was greeted with lots of snow and little open water. But it only takes a little patch of running water and some fish to make a living for this hardy heron. I have video of this guy catching fish from this open patch.

[Canon 7D with Sigma 50-500mm lens at 167mm; 1/320 second at f.7.1; ISO 100; +0.66 ev; hand-held]

Meadowhawk and Big Bluestem (Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge, Minnesota) August 2018

I like the pinks, purples and reds in this photo. I also like the placement of the Meadowhawk in the top right part of the frame…atop a gracefully curving stem of Big Bluestem grass.

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f5.6 L USM lens at 200mm; 1/640 second at f4; ISO 100; hand-held]

Red-tailed Hawk in snowfall (Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota) April 2018

This was totally just a “grab-and-go” photo during a spring snow squall in the Sax-Zim Bog last April. It is not razor sharp but I think it works as a very “painterly” abstract photo. I like the blurred purple-red colors of the out-of-focus willows.

[Canon 7D with Sigma 50-500mm lens at 450mm; 1/160 second at f.6.3; ISO 800; +1 ev; hand-held]

Sandhill Crane in wildflower meadow (Pine County, Minnesota) June 2018

Pretty bird in pretty flowers…’nuf said?

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f5.6 L USM lens; 1/3200 second at f.5.6; ISO 640; hand-held from car]

Snowy Owl on fence line (Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge, Minnesota) March 2018

Yes, there is an owl in this photo…Way out on the fence line. I think this photo would look really cool printed very large. A true “animal in the landscape” photo.

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f5.6 L USM lens; 1/800 second at f.9; ISO 100; tripod]

Snowy Owl on hay bale (Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota) December 2018

Interesting juxtaposition…an arctic bird in a rural farm landscape. But this is where they are at home in the winter. These large farm hayfields hold large number of voles…and they mimic their summer tundra home. The haybale becomes just another hummock on the tundra.

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f4 L USM lens at 91mm; 1/320 second at f.7.1; ISO 1250; hand-held]

Trumpeter Swans and tree reflections (Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming) April 2018

It certainly is a strange photo. Normally I would never really love a photo where I am looking down on my subject, but I like the reflection of the dead pines in the water and that both swans are looking back towards the center of the frame.

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 50mm f1.8 STM lens; 1/2500 second at f.8; ISO 200; hand-held]

Can you see me? Bittern (Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota) May 2018

American Bitterns are masters of camouflage…when they are in a brown landscape with vertical cattails, as in the photo above. They stretch out their neck allowing their vertical breast stripes to blend in with the cattails. But this camouflage doesn’t work so well when they are in the middle of a dirt road…but they stick with their technique despite the absurdity of it.

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f5.6 L USM lens; 1/200 second at f.5.6; ISO 400; hand-held]

Tundra Swan congregation (Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge, Brownsville, Minnesota) November 2018

xx

[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f5.6 L USM lens; 1/160 second at f.8; ISO 100; tripod]

No…Not a Bison cow with triplets…Just two playful “red dog” calves coming over to play with her nursing calf. The Bison were just dropping their calves in late April.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/160 at f5.6; ISO 100; tripod]

Snow greeted us as we pulled in to the Mammoth Campground in Yellowstone after driving all night from Duluth. But as we waited for someone to vacate the campground so we could pick a spot, this male Mountain Bluebird entertained us by foraging near the gate.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/320 at f6.3; ISO 100; handheld]

Mountain Bluebird male

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/800 at f5.6; ISO 100; handheld]

Yellow-bellied Marmot surveys his “kingdom” in Yellowstone.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/250 at f5.6; ISO 100; tripod]

Yellow-bellied Marmot. I like how the shade of the mountain slope in the background becomes a beautiful blue blur.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/500 at f5.6; ISO 200; tripod]

Elk pair; His breath visible in the cool morning air.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/640 at f5.6; ISO 320; handheld]

We were bummed that the road that leads to LeHardy Rapids was still snowed in. This is the traditional hotspot for Harlequin Ducks. But fortunately we spotted this colorful pair along the Madison River.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/400 at f7.1; ISO 800; tripod]

Harlequin Duck male spreads his tail feathers after preening. Yellowstone is the southernmost breeding site for this species in all of North America! The main part of their breeding range includes British Columbia, Alaska, Yukon and Labrador. They prefer to nest along fast-flowing mountain rivers.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/250 at f6.3; ISO 400; tripod]

Harlequin Duck male

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/100 at f6.3; ISO 100; tripod]

Harlequin’s love fast water…the more turbulent the better! They dive underwater in rapids to feed.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/500 at f5.6; ISO 200; tripod]

Bison herd along the Madison River.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 lens at 18mm; (Metabones adapter); 1/400 at f6.3; ISO 160; tripod]

Beaver having a late afternoon snack.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/200 at f7.1; ISO 1600; handheld]

Sow Black Bear and one of her two tiny cubs. I got some nice video of this trio, which I will include in a future post.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/320 at f8; ISO 400; tripod]

Bison and her “red dog” calf.

We ran across a band of Bighorn ewes near Yellowstone Picnic area.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/400 at f5.6; ISO 100; tripod]

A trio of Black-billed Magpies wait out a snow squall near Mammoth.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (Metabones adapter); 1/60 at f13; ISO 100; braced on car window]

 

No, sadly I don’t own this Canon 200mm EF IS USM f2.0 lens…(only $5,699 from Adorama canon 200mm f2 adorama)…but I rented it from http://www.lensrentals.com for a couple hundred bucks for a week. I DIDN’T WANT TO GIVE IT BACK!

I used it on my Canon 7D (my new Sony A6500 always had the Canon 400mm f5.6 lens on it for 4K video usage) and I often hand held it, even though it weighs a hefty 5.6 pounds! Here are a few things I loved…

1. Incredibly sharp lens!
2. Lovely “bokeh” at f2.0 (the buttery backgrounds caused by the shallow depth of field when shooting wide open at f2.
3. Snappy focus
4. Solid feel
5. Image stabilization that really worked
6. Able to shoot hand held in low light situations due to the “fast” f2.0 aperture.

Now, I’m not a techy photographer, but I could instantly tell when I downloaded and viewed my photos on the large computer screen that this lens creates very sharp photos with beautiful backgrounds. I shot almost every image with this lens wide open at f2.0.

BUT you need the right subject in the right situation for this lens to shine. Before we went on this trip I searched Flickr for all images shot with “Canon 200mm f2” lens. 90% were portraits of people. And the reason for this is that you need a fairly large subject (human, Bison, Pronghorn) at a fairly close distance. This rarely happens in wildlife photography…But in Yellowstone, the wildlife is used to humans so you can get quite close. And it’s open country. Ideally you also need some stuff in the foreground and background in order to show off the shallow depth of field. Look especially at the foreground and background in the photos below…You could never get this kind of bokeh (blurred background/foreground) with other telephoto lenses at this distance.

OR you need smaller subjects shot at close range (Raven, Harlequin Duck, Shooting Star flower). The lens only focuses to 6.2 feet at the close end, but you could add extension tubes for real dreamy background close up work.

Conclusion? All in all, a magnificent lens…for the right situations. Really not sure how much use it would get in northern Minnesota where the wildlife is usually in thick cover, and often only seen briefly. It would be very cool for large northern owls (who are quite tame), but probably does not justify a nearly $6,000 purchase. Maybe I could justify it by adding a 2x extender and making it into a 400mm f4 lens…Naah. BUT I will definitely rent it again on a future Yellowstone National Park trip.

Talk about sharp…Wow! I zoomed in on the reflection in the eye of the Raven and could easily see and count the pine trees in the background.

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/320 at f2; ISO 100; +1.33 ev; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/1600 at f2; ISO 250; +0.33 ev; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

The lens is great for eye-level water shots in order to separate the subject from the background on lakes, river. With other lenses (such as the 70-200mm f4 lens) the background would be much more detailed and the birds lost in the composition. Also note the Trumpeter swan photo below.

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/1250 at f2; ISO 100; +1 ev; tripod; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

 

Here is an example of an image that may not look too different with another lens as I shot it at f4.5.

[Sony A6500 with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/320 at f4.5; ISO 100; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/400 at f2; ISO 100; +1.33 ev; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

 

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/1000 at f2; ISO 100; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/1250 at f2; ISO 100; +0.66 ev; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/500 at f2; ISO 100; +0.66 ev; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/1000 at f2; ISO 100; +1.33 ev; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

 

 

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/2500 at f2; ISO 100; +1 ev; tripod; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

Not sure why I shot this at f2.0….Should have shot at f8. No need for shallow depth of field here.

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/1000 at f2; ISO 100;  -0.66 ev; tripod; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

This lens really shines with low angle photography. This was shot BELOW eye-level and makes the Bison look quite ominous…And I was not too comfortable being this close.

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/1000 at f2; ISO 100; -0.5 ev; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

Classic photo with the f2 lens…A boring image with any other lens, but the blurred background and foreground created by shooting at f2.0 make this less than boring (But not that great either).

Love this! The ONLY sharp thing in this photo is the flower head of this tiny Shooting Star wildflower (see image below for size scale).

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/3200 at f2; ISO 100; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

Ryan photographing the same Shooting Star wildflower for scale.

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/1250 at f2; ISO 100; +0.66 ev; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

Sharp!

[Canon 7D with Canon 200mm f2 lens; 1/320 at f2; ISO 100; handheld; Processed in Adobe Lightroom]

I get bored with pretty portraits of wildlife, but I often fall into the routine of just filling the frame with the critter and not paying attention to composition, landscape and other creative ideas to pump a little life into my wildlife images. And I must admit, I didn’t make creativity a priority this year (2016). Let’s hope I can do better in ’17. But here are my “Top Thirteen” favorites…

Bighorns play King of the Hill; Yellowstone National Park.
One of the wondrous things about Yellowstone is that you can observe wildlife going about their lives as if you were invisible. A century of protection has allowed critters the luxury of not being fearful of man. And so it was with this bachelor herd of Bighorn Sheep. The big old rams were laying down, resting, but the younger rams were playing “king of the hill,” taking turns knocking each other off this bluff-top boulder. By moving low, and slow, but in plain sight, we were able to get close enough to get some shots (and video) and enjoy their antics. Even though it was mid-April, many months removed from the rut, it was obvious that they were all still vying for position and dominance.
[Canon 7D with Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm; 1/1250 sec at f5.6; ISO 400; Manfrotto tripod with Wimberly Sidekick]

Bighorn; Yellowstone National Park.
Kind of an Escher-esque image…It would be perfect if the left Bighorn was a couple inches farther right…But it’s unique enough as is. I like it for some odd reason.

Bison; Teddy Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota.
I’d say this is my favorite image of 2016. Ryan and I were shooting along a backroad of “Teddy” before the sunrise, getting some cool subtle silhouettes…then the sun rose and we assumed we should move on so we would not be shooting into the sun. But It was a cool morning and I saw the breath from this Bison backlit and knew it would be a neat shot. So I hustled into a position where the Bison’s body would block the sun and backlight all the breath and steam coming off his body. I tweaked the white balance to add some “sunrise gold” color into the scene.
[Canon 7D with Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 158mm; 1/2000 sec at f22; ISO 200; Manfrotto tripod with Wimberly Sidekick]

Rough-legged Hawk, Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota.
Mid October is a beautiful time in the Sax-Zim Bog…the Tamaracks are at their peak yellow-gold color and migrant hawks can be seen overhead. This bird-in-the-landscape photo captures both these fall highlights. Rough-legs breed in the Arctic, but move south in late fall. They hunt small rodents by hovering and watching…and that is exactly what this Rough-leg is doing. Sometimes the small-bird-in-big-landscape shot works well, and I think it does here.
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L; 1/1250 at f5.6; ISO 800; braced on car window frame]

Black Tern and Cattails; Thief Lake Wildlife Management Area, Marshall County, Minnesota.
Did you do a double-take when first seeing this image? The cattails are only a reflection in a dead calm pond.
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L; 1/1600 at f5.6; ISO 250; handheld]

Bohemian Waxwing; Wrenshall, Minnesota.
Kind of a blah photo straight out of the camera…but I saw some potential in it. I turned the gray skies into a dramatic white background by blowing out the whites in Aperture and Photoshop…then I “erased” a stray branch to strengthen the composition.
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L; 1/4000 at f5.6; ISO 1000; handheld]

Coyote; Yellowstone National Park.
How often can you say you laid in the middle of the road to get a shot of a Coyote running at you? I wanted to get the canid right in the middle of the yellow lines so I laid right in the middle of the road. Strange composition but kind of fun.
[Canon 7D with Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm; 1/500 at f6.3; ISO 160; handheld]

Ducks and rushes, Thief Lake Wildlife Management Area, NW Minnesota.
I reduced this image to its most important elements…the shapes of the rushes and the ducks in flight. I simply converted the image to black-and-white and clipped the whites in Photoshop.
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L; 1/1600 at f5.6; ISO 250; handheld]

Ivory Gull, Duluth’s Canal Park, Minnesota.
A very rare bird in front of a very famous lighthouse. A bird-in-the-landscape photo with a twist. The Ivory Gull is an elusive small gull of the High Arctic…It is rare even in its breeding range! But sightings in the Lower 48 are very rare. And last winter there were TWO in the area. Birders came from all over the country to add this bird to their “Life List.”
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L at 98mm; 1/250 at f7.1; ISO 200; +2/3 EV; handheld]

Little Blue Heron, St. Louis River, Duluth, Minnesota.
Does something look strange about this photo? It should…It’s upside down! I like the painterly quality the flipped reflection gives this image.
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L; 1/1000 at f5.6; ISO 320; handheld]

Red-tailed Hawk; Yellowstone National Park.
This Red-tailed Hawk ruined my image of the moon! Just kidding…
[Canon 7D with Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm;

Trout, Durango, Colorado.
A slow shutter speed makes for a stylized photo of a swimming trout at the hatchery.
[Canon 7D with Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L at 200mm; 1/6 second at f32; ISO 100; handheld]

Wild Turkey, Skogstjarna, Carlton County, Minnesota.
To get this extreme wide angle shot, I set my camera with a 10mm lens on a mini-tripod outside my back window with a remote trigger attached. When the turkeys came in for some cracked corn, I remotely tripped the shutter (from the comfort of my easy-chair!). Note the displaying Tom in the background. I have not yet perfected this idea, but hope to work on it more in 2017.
[Canon 7D with Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 lens at 13mm; 1/100 at f8; ISO 400; remotely triggered from inside the house]

Still Life with Redtail and Moon 1
How could I pass this up? Wish I could have set up a tripod and shot at f22 or smaller to get more depth of field and the moon more in focus, but redtails don’t pose for that long.
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 400mm; f20 at 1/200 second; ISO 400; -0.33ev; handheld]

Silver Griz
This fella was our only Grizzly of the trip. Mid April is a bit early for many bears to be out of hibernation…and the high country roads are not yet open where there could very well be more bears. On our mid May trip a couple years ago, we saw quite a few Griz. But this guy was sure a beauty! We stopped, as we almost always do, when we saw a couple cars pulled over (and here’s the real key) and some long lenses on tripods. “What do ya got?” Is the standard photographer-to-photographer exchange in situations like this. They’d seen a Grizzly on the slope on the opposite side of the river, but it had moved off into some forest cover. So we pulled over, got out and helped them relocate the bear. Well nature called to Ryan, and while he was watering the early spring grass, he spotted the bear. He came back to the road and told us. I got a few handheld shots but Ryan had to go back to our car to get his camera. When Ryan got back, I went back to the car to get my tripod. But soon after I left something really spooked the Grizzly and it ran off. The only thing we know of that can spook the apex predator of the park…is another Grizzly. But while we waited another 45 minutes or so, nothing showed.
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 400mm; f5.6 at 1/1000 second; ISO 400; handheld]

Sole of the Bear
This Black Bear recently out of hibernation had the most unusual nearly white, soles of its feet. I’ve seen many many Black Bears and have never noticed this trait before. My gut feeling is that this bear just had abnormally pale foot pads.
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 400mm; f7.1 at 1/640 second; ISO 500; -1ev; tripod]

Rockin’ Redtail
The Red-tailed Hawks were certainly migrating through and returning to Yellowstone this week. We saw many, and this one posed on a picture-perfect perch long enough to get a shot.
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 400mm; f7.1 at 1/2000 second; ISO 320; +1ev; tripod]

Lunar Buteo
Red-tailed Hawks are a type of buteo…a raptor with big broad wings and short tails. They are built for soaring, scanning open country for prey. “Forest hawks” who hunt in dense woods need shorter rounded wings and long tails (to act as an “air rudder”) so they can maneuver in close quarters in flight. I love “bird and moon” shots…especially when the bird is relatively small in the frame. Of course, these images are best viewed large.
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 400mm; f5.6 at 1/2500 second; ISO 320; handheld]

Pronghorn in the Sage
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 400mm; f5.6 at 1/800 second; ISO 250; handheld, braced on outside of car]

Ryan Marshik

Campsite Buddies!
Each night, a small herd of Bison grazed right through our campsite, noisily munching the new green grass. It’s funny, you would never dare to get this close to them out in the park (in fact it’s illegal to get closer than 25 yards) but here they are so preoccupied, and used to people, that you can sit at your picnic table 5 yards away and enjoy the slow parade.

Sandhill Crane in its Finest
Love the “bustle” of this Sandhill Crane. It was one of a pair that had returned to nest in the park’s marshes and wet meadows.
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 400mm; f10 at 1/500 second; ISO 400; -0.33ev; handheld, braced on car window frame]

Dipper thinking about taking a Dip
Dippers feed on underwater aquatic critters in fast moving streams and rivers of the western U.S. They are one of Bridget’s favorite birds and so I always try and get a few shots.
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 400mm; f6.3 at 1/250 second; ISO 640; handheld]

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 255mm; f11 at 1/2000 second; ISO 100; -2.33ev; tripod]

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 255mm; f11 at 1/320 second; ISO 100; tripod]

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 400mm; f11 at 1/800 second; ISO 100; -2ev; tripod]
All three of the above shots of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River were taken from Artist’s Point. The falls, at 308 vertical feet, is the tallest in the park. The light (quality and direction) was not good for broad scenic vistas, so I used the telephoto to zoom in on one part of the scene. The lone silhouetted tree really made this shot for me. Here are three variations…Which do you like?

Goofy Bull
Early spring is NOT a good time to photograph Elk in the West; all the Elk at this time of year look pretty ratty. They are shedding their winter coats, and not gracefully. The older bulls are just sprouting their new antlers, growth being nourished by the blood-rich “velvet” coating them (see photo below), but the first year bulls sometimes hold their little antlers all winter instead of dropping them in late fall/early winter like the older guys.
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 300mm; f5 at 1/1600 second; ISO 200; handheld]

Big and Velvety
These were some really big boys holding up traffic along the road. Note their height compared to the car in the foreground. Wish I could see these guys again in the fall when their massive antlers will be in their prime.
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 214mm; f7.1 at 1/400 second; ISO 500; tripod]

American Serengeti
Easily the biggest herd of Elk I’ve ever seen in Yellowstone…over 200 animals. I didn’t even include all the herd in this shot. Nearby were herds of Bison, Mule Deer and Pronghorn. Impressive!
[Canon 7D with Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS II USM lens at 263mm; f6.3 at 1/60 second; ISO 320; tripod (accidentally at this shutter speed because I had just switched over from taking some video)]