Best of 2020

 

The pandemic abruptly stopped the world in 2020. But with the suspension of most social obligations, I ended up spending more time with my camera. And after I succumbed to the virus myself around Halloween, I used my COVID immunity to take an impromptu trip to Monterey where I photographed this baby orca. In a year most people would rather forget, this was my favorite photo of 2020.

🌡🌡🌡🌡

I spent many an evening in New Jersey, Maine and Wyoming looking for North American beavers with zero success. Who knew the best place to see them was a former uranium processing plant?

Beavers are incredibly destructive and yet they create invaluable habitat that supports a huge diversity of other plants and animals. They created a vast network of ponds that support ducks, wading birds and kingfishers. 

The beaver ponds hold water even at the end of a hot, dry summer. I spent a lot of time at Fernald during the pandemic.

An American mink is a beneficiary of the beaver's hard work. It hunts beaver ponds looking for frogs, fish, mice and voles. 

I almost always see white-tailed deer on my forays, but I rarely get a keeper photo. I like this silhouette.

Fernald is home to at least five woodpeckers, including this beautiful red-headed woodpecker.

A northern bobwhite hung out at the park entrance for a few days, perching on a fencepost for excellent evening portraits in good light.

I love looking for those spotty deer! This little fawn was beautiful in the tall marsh grass.

An American kestrel perches on willow buds while looking for easy opportunities. 

A baby great horned owl is nearly ready for flight school at Gilmore Ponds. The little babies hop around the tree branches testing their wings before making their first fumbling flights.

A Mandarin duck named Manny captured the hearts of Cincinnatians with his years-long romance with a mallard. They were inseparable partners.

I made a pilgrimage to Darke County to look for long-eared owls. Local birders helped me find this camouflaged owl (shot with a 600mm long lens so as not to disturb him).

In early winter, the sandhill cranes put on a show.

After a rainstorm cleared out Joyce Park, I was able to spend some quality time with these baby thirteen-lined ground squirrels. They're so tiny! This is the only place in southwest Ohio where I can find these adorable, charming prairie dogs.

Morning yoga! A thirteen-lined ground squirrel stretches like a cat from toe to toe. Sorry, I shouldn't have said cat. Is this downward-facing prairie dog?

In December, I made my first trip to the North Woods of Minnesota. At Sax Zim Bog, I found my first boreal owl. I may never see another. Wowza! This was an owly year for me with seven species: barred, great horned, snowy, northern hawk, boreal, long-eared and short-eared.

I drove through Superior National Forest where I spied a black wolf dashing off the road into the forest. I wasn't fast enough to get a photo so I had to content myself with its tracks in the dirty snow.

I'm ever a fan of bunnies, so finding a snowshoe hare in its white camouflage in the deep snow was a real win. I have photographed them in Alaska but always with their brown coats.

I visited Point Reyes to look for bobcats and was distressed at all the barbed wire limiting public access here. The fences are for the dairy and veal farmers that let their animals graze on public property. Even if you were to see something cool, you wouldn't be able to get closer. Big fail, California. But this muley has no similar troubles. Point Reyes is a waste of time.

I found two bobcats, but couldn't get good pics. Point Reyes is the worst.

Western sandpipers land on the beach near Monterey.

A baby sea otter gets a ride from her mom off Monterey. I finally caught a baby sea otter in good morning light!

A California quail blends in with the shadows.

An orca hunts California sea lions off Monterey.

Sunlight peeks through the morning mist in the Great Smoky Mountains. I'm not much of a landscape photographer, but I like this one.