Capturing the Moment

Vestiaria coccinea Scarlet Honeycreeper, "I'iwi"    The I'iwi, or scarlet honeycreeper is one of the  best known species of Hawaiian endemic finch species. Usually it is just seen as a red flash as it disappears into the native forest, however with a little (or a lot) of patience you may be lucky enough to see an I'iwi land and feed on a colorful tree.   The honeycreepers here in Hawaii are all descendants of one finch ancestor. Think about Darwin sailing to the Galapagos islands and finding a dozen or so different finch species there, all filling different niches, eventually leading Darwin to his theory of evolution. If he would have come to the Hawaiian islands instead, Darwin would have found 54 different species of finch, and most likely would have come to his conclusion of evolution years earlier!   Not all species have survived as well as our I'iwi, and even those are regulated to the high elevation patches of native forest. Thanks to the in...

Hungry European Bee Eater Grey Headed Kingfisher Bird Photography in Kruger National Park  The bird life in Africa is amazing. It is enough to turn anyone into a budding birder. Beautiful bee eaters, colorful rollers, king fishers, sun birds, and all kinds of birds-of-prey abound in places like Kruger National Park. Armed with a new Canon 100-400mm L series lens I was ready to capture all the action.   There are two methods for getting bird photography in Kruger. You can drive around, cover some distance, and keep an eye out for colorful streaks across the road, or the silhouettes of larger birds up in the trees, but you need to really hone in your bird scanning if you are going to do this on the move. Another method is to find birding hotspots and stay in one place. Several blinds have been setup around the park overlooking ponds. Africa is the kind of place that you can sit and watch one big tree and see dozens of different bird species. Rare sighting of a...

  Growing up in Savannah, GA it was always a big deal if you saw a bald eagle. Sightings were rare and nests were a show stopper for any kind of construction project nearby. Now I am in the land of eagles, Alaska, where I sometimes see thirty or forty bald eagles at a time. Yet they still hold that same place in my heart. I stop what I do them and watch with awe and understand perfectly why they were chosen as our national symbol. The give off such a regal nature while mastering their role as the top bird-of-prey.   So instead of getting tired of seeing eagles I work on seeing more of them and learning more about them by watching and photographing them here in Alaska. Outside of Homer, Heidi and I found the perfect location for an eagle photo shoot. With nearly 20 adults and juveniles lining the beach we casually walked up and down taking pictures as we went. Different shorebirds and ocean birds were bobbing in the waves just offshore but while Heidi was trying to ident...