One and Done

Wildlife photographers prefer to have multiple opportunities to photograph new species. But there have been many instances where I get a single lucky encounter with a new animal and have to make the most of it. Of all of Antarctica's wildlife, I most wanted to see leopard seals. So I was excited to watch one hunt down and kill a king penguin in deep water off South Georgia Island. I had the foresight to bring the perfect lens with me for the low light and rolling waves aboard our RIB in the off chance we saw a leopard seal while going ashore. And when the radio crackled with a report of a leopard seal, that lens worked like a champ as we rocketed over the waves to catch up to the seal. We watched in horror and awe as the seal caught the king penguin and shook it like a ragdoll. The seal left most of the penguin for the skuas.

🙉  🙉  🙉

This critically endangered Ruppell's griffon vulture deserves a second look. I didn't recognize it when I photographed it with common white-backed vultures feeding on this wildebeest in Kenya's Maasai Mara. Griffon vultures hold the record for the highest-flying birds, reaching altitudes higher than Mount Everest.

A Botta's pocket gopher was a fun find when I visited California's Point Reyes National Seashore. Gophers are common across North America, but you rarely see them. This one posed for me as it excavated a new burrow. I had never seen a gopher before!

The little gopher used its chest like a front-end loader to remove loose soil from its burrow in huge piles.

Echidnas are among the most widespread mammals in Australia. But this was the only echidna I found in my two weeks of wildlife photography in Queensland. This egg-laying mammal let me get just a few photos while I was hiking the Forts Trail on Magnetic Island to look for koalas. I was totally stoked to spend even a few minutes with this one before he scurried off into the underbrush.

This boreal owl posed for me in Minnesota's Sax Zim Bog. These owls are tiny and secretive, which makes this discovery all the more special. It might be the only one I ever see.

I don't spend a lot of time actively searching for snakes, so I was extremely pleased to find this pretty eyelash viper in Costa Rica's Arenal National Park. 

Ohio is home to long-eared owls but finding one is very unusual.

I knew the fenced Satara restcamp in Kruger National Park was home to a habituated African wildcat and I asked about her with reception as soon as I arrived. They said she had caused some consternation that week after getting into a guest's cottage and falling asleep on top of the refrigerator. A ranger had to come shoo her out. After a night game drive, I went back to my tent to grab some lights to go look for her. When I turned around, she was sitting in my campsite! African wildcats are forebears of our domesticated cat. And this one was the only wildcat I have ever seen. She was looking for food but turned her nose up at the tuna I offered her. Spoiled! 

My first visit to Africa ruined me forever because there is nothing cooler than a honey badger.

A juvenile American goshawk was a unique discovery at the Cape May Meadows one evening. They are rarely seen in the East.

While driving to Murchison Falls National Park, we stopped to photograph a band of black and white colobus monkeys that were crossing the tree canopy above us. I have only seen these monkeys at the Cincinnati Zoo!

Kruger National Park in South Africa has 21 species of antelope. This is my only encounter with one of them, a tiny dog-sized Sharpe's grysbok. It was foraging a couple hundred yards away from a pride of lions that was feeding on a giraffe! Despite six weeks of photography over three visits, I still haven't seen every antelope in the park. I added klipspringers during my last visit. But sable and roan and some of the secretive little antelope still elude me.

Uganda has a wide diversity of primates like these Patas monkeys. 

A pademelon settles down for an afternoon nap in the rainforests of the Atherton Tablelands in Australia. I spied this little marsupial while looking for platypus. Bluey is right: the creek is beautiful.

The Atherton Tablelands is also home to the secretive tree kangaroo, which spends most of its time high in the tree canopy.

Disney fans might recognize this bird from the opening scene of the Lion King as the birds scurried out of the way of an elephant. But this vulturine guinea fowl is the only one I ever photographed.

Kenya's Samburu National Park is home to endemic wildlife like Grevy's zebras and long-necked gerenuks. But I only saw one Grant's gazelle. What a legend!

I didn't realize I was photographing a new species for me when I came upon this family of desert warthogs in Samburu, Kenya.