Merry Christmas Everyone

No photos this morning folks, this was a last minute thought as I set at the fire station kitchen table drinking coffee after a busy night. With any luck I will get off at 8:30 this morning. I have my fingers crossed. For all the regulars and just the occaisional web surfer, have a Merry and safe Christmas

This is the first time I have ever tried making a post from my ipad, I hope it turns out.

Brad

Do You Remember This Buck?

Do you remember this buck?  I posted him on November 17 and mentioned that he was the most impressive buck I had seen during the rut.  Not the most points but most impressive spread and length of tines.  This view gives you a better view of the rack and provides you the opportunity to see all 12 of the points including the spot with the broken brow tine.

This is not the best of the photographs I got of this buck but I still liked it.  It was taken early morning just as the sun came up over the horizon.  He had been chasing does and was in the beginning stages of a lip curl allowing him to smell the does in estrogen.  I sure could use another one of these trips right now to relax me and relieve some stress.

Do You See It?

Well do you, do you see it?  Do you know what the "it" is I am referring to?  I am speaking of the beauty of this whitetail buck.  When I look at this animal I see strength, beauty and pride.  I may not hunt anymore but I still like venison and get it often at work.  But I could stand all day and watch this magnificent animal.  Now do you see it?

Now for the photo details, like most these days it was taken with the D7000 and the 200-400 VR F4 on the Wimberly.  It was captured in low light at ISO 640, 1/40 sec. F4 at 600 mm.

Juvenile Red Shoulder Hawk...

This is a juvenile Red Shoulder Hawk I photographed last month in SNP, Virginia.  There is more to this story and more photos than I am showing here but all that will have to wait for another time.  As in the past time is short and I have no ambition to set in front of this thing working on photos or pecking away.

This photo was taken late afternoon with back lighting.  Sometimes I try for the back lighting other times it is because it was mt only choice.  This hawk has that nice glow around it I am just never sure how to post process them.  For that reason I do next to nothing to them.  By the way this photo was taken with the D700, 200-400 Vr f4 lens at ISO 400, 1/400 sec., F4 at 600 mm hand held.

Do You Think His Tongue Was Planned?

Do you think this young bull stuck his tongue out on purpose?  I am betting he did knowing I was taking his photo, that has been the story of my life.  Time is still short, this is all you get.

This Bull Has Been Hard At Work...

This photo was taken at this years Elk rut in Northern Pennsylvania.  Time is short and the brain quit working sometime back, okay it was years ago so I will keep this very short.  This bull was busy keeping his herd together and tearing everything up to impress the cows.  And now while the cows look towards another bull he needs to rip off a most impressive bugle.  What an awesome sight and even more awesome sound it is.  I can't wait to do it again next year.

The Danger Appears...

Continuing on my last post after looking for the danger the whitetails made us aware of for almost one and a half hours Shane spotted a Coyote in the meadow.  He was about 50 yards from the deer when we spotted him and feeding on the blueberries.  He never approached the deer any closer after we seen him but he did stay in the area long enough to allow us to get a few photographs.  The whitetails remained in the meadow feeding and were never ran off by him.  This coyote would never take down a healthy adult whitetail but I am sure they remember him feeding on the fawns earlier in the summer and remained on high alert.

On High Alert!

It is funny I should use this as a title since that is what I am in every day of my life with this job.  The sad part my high alert is not from the bells sounding an alarm but from everything else in the city.  Enough said about that onto the subject at hand.

In August when Shane and I traveled to SNP to photograph the fawns and bucks in velvet we entered the meadow under the cover of darkness and waited for the sun to rise.  When the sun rose we were surrounded by 27 deer, seven of those being bucks.  We held our positions and enjoyed the morning photographing the deer.  An hour or so into it we noticed the bucks and does paying attention the the back part of the meadow.  Frequently tails would be raised along with the occasional snort and stomp.  We knew that the deer were alerting to danger and that it was not us.  We scanned the meadow for the danger for almost an hour and a half before the danger appeared.

For that you will need to tune into my next post.