Best of 2025

Some of my happiest times have been spent looking for lions. Few photo subjects are more exciting. So it's no surprise that this portrait I captured in Kruger in January was my favorite photo of 2025. I hope you enjoy the rest.

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Thirteen-lined ground squirrels are Ohio's prairie dogs. These tiny, social animals live in a colony at the soccer fields of Joyce Park, where they feed on clover and bark warnings to each other all day.

Spring at Fernald found this young snapping turtle doing his best impression of a Galapagos tortoise.

I found bobcat tracks twice this year at Fernald. The bob-tailed cat that left them is still a phantom.

This American redstart makes the list because they only sit still for 1.3 seconds at a time and I was happy to get even one photo that was in focus.

A painted dog puppy gets a bath from its mom. I only took one photo trip this year. I don't think 2026 will be much better with the price of airfare. I got to follow this family of wild dogs on a morning hunt.

This was my fav pic with the dogs. One found this downed branch and began playing with a stick and suddenly all the litter mates wanted a stick, too. They're still puppies, after all.

Two young stallions play fight just north of Crocodile Bridge. I spent a lot of time photographing zebras on this trip. Zebras can be shy around people, so you often get zebra butt as they head off into the scrub. This was the first time I had ever seen a zebra rear up on its back feet. I went with B&W to create some contrast with the impossible washed-out midday light.

A lioness watches the sun rise over the grasslands.

The size of a red squirrel, a lesser bushbaby perches on its front porch high in a tree at Malelane. This is one of just a handful of primates in the park. When it got dark, I saw the bushbaby leap 10 feet at a bound from branch to branch. In the light of my headlamp, its eyes were golden fireworks streaking across the tree canopy. 

Another pint-sized predator is the dwarf mongoose. These tiny siblings wrestled like bear cubs. I also saw several slender mongoose and a genet. But the small animals were pretty scarce on this trip.

A baby elephant is still trying to learn how to use its tiny trunk. I steered well clear of elephants. 

 

It can be hard to photograph elephants because of their proportions. I like how the setting sun illuminated every clod of dirt and wrinkle on this old bull.

The soft evening light was perfect during a night game drive. 

A baby vervet monkey nibbles leaves like her mom even if she's still too young to eat solid food. I expected to find vervet monkeys at the Berg en Dal rest camp and was not disappointed. The parking lot was deserted mid-morning. I stupidly left the windows down in my rental and his older cousins led a raiding party on the groceries in the back seat. But the monkeys were too bold! I quickly shooed them away. If they had waited a minute longer, I no doubt would have been distracted and they could have helped themselves to my blueberry muffins, bananas and Flamin' Hot cheese puffs.

A pretty nyala poses for a pic. Kruger has more than 20 species of antelope.

These wood hoopoes were the birds of the year for me. Very cool sighting.

A lion cub chills with his littermates. This pride consisted of two lionesses with 11 cubs all the same age. And they all needed a good meal.

Elephants return from a refreshing dunk in a waterhole on another sweltering summer day.

I had a couple uncomfortably close encounters with elephants, despite going well out of my way to avoid them. In one instance, I was stopped in traffic surrounded by thick brush while a mega-herd of more than 100 elephants crossed the road ahead of me. Suddenly, a mom and her baby exploded through the brush. They clambered up the hill onto the road next to my SUV, filling my side window with four tons of annoyed, trumpeting outrage. I had nowhere to go, so I just had to hold my breath while I waited for the elephant's next move. Luckily for me, she regained her composure led her baby past my car without incident.

Another time, I was on an evening game drive when we were stopped in our tracks by a large bull elephant that was defending the road. The bull wouldn't let any cars come or go. This went on for about 45 minutes. Many of the delivery vehicles lining up behind us were trying to exit the park before dark. And the sun was quickly sinking behind the trees. Our guide decided to break the siege. He gunned the big diesel engine of the 2.5-ton safari truck and inched forward. The bull grudgingly surrendered the road.

Our safari truck stood sentinel while cars in both directions took the opportunity to pass safely. Then it was our turn and we inched past the elephant. But our cheeky driver hit the squeaky brakes just past the bull. I knew the elephant would take that as a provocation and sure enough he wheeled around and shook his enormous head. "He's coming!" we shouted, half in glee and half in terror. The guide smashed the accelerator and we pulled away just as the bull lowered his head and charged. And I caught this blurry photo of elephant rage as we made our narrow escape. We were never in any real danger, but we laughed and enjoyed the adrenaline rush.