When I look back at recent posts here at Earth Images, I notice that I tend to repeat subjects in several posts, be it photography, politics or otherwise. I get stuck on one theme and it takes me a while to get it out of my system. In recent months, the photographic theme of perched and artfully (they’re the artists) posed Double Crested Cormorants seems to rise to that standard.

It helps that I have spent a lot of time while in pursuit of wildlife photographs, with Cormorants at Horicon Marsh NWR here in Wisconsin. There are a lot of dead tree snags jutting out above the wetland here and that allows the Cormorants to flutter up to a nice perch, and stretch and preen while their wet wings dry.

When I say they are the artists, I mean it.

Of course, every so often one breaks with tradition and gives us a standard pose at water level.

Horicon is also a nice location for catching the “blending” (camouflage) poses that American Bitterns are famous for. (Yes I ended the sentence with a preposition. While I am a strong believer and follower of moral laws, and those to protect the personal rights of citizens, I have always struggled with rules for rules sake)

These guys love to point their bill to the sky and attempt to blend with grasses and such. Of course, sometimes the selection of short grasses instead of long, seems like defeating the purpose, but it makes for nice, clean images.

Of course marshlands aren’t only about birds and the common Muskrat is always happy to pose for photographers, although it seems this one believes it is hiding in back of five blades of grass.

Breaking with our Horicon theme, let’s take a look at a cute little Red Fox kit out enjoying a late spring morning in southeastern Wisconsin. This area seems to be a hotbed for foxes and considering the size of the Coyote population in these parts, they do really well. He or she was oblivious to me and my camera.

On the road. There was nothing (for me) like roaming the American west and taking what she gives me.

This rock form and old barn was photographed in southwest Texas in Big Bend N.P. Sometimes the physical and emotional contrasts between nature’s stuff and man’s stuff, is visually interesting. The direction of the sun made it impossible to catch the rock face and the front of the barn both in detail in the same picture frame. I exposed for the rock which left me just enough exposure on the barn front to save it in the editing process at home. I simply clicked on the barn front only, and added enough light to bring back a little detail. The magic of digital photography.

Everything’s sweet at the edge of light. Also at Big Bend.

Turquoise Lake in Colorado is located a few miles south of Leadville where I had spent the night. Leadville is the highest (elevation not drugs) city (10,000 feet) with a year around population in North America. I always visited or stayed there when in the state. With that said, I did not remember ever seeing this gem of a mountain lake before.

Often it pays to wander, and I was always a wanderer in my heart, and in reality.

As a photographer, there is nothing better for producing graphic patterns or designs than the light of sunrise/sunset, and a leafless tree. Sometimes it seems as though I spent as much time while making pictures, with leafless trees, as I did with leaf on trees. No need to travel far to make pictures like this.

In some respects this image has a scary mood to it.

Well, hopefully I got the final vestiges of Cormorants on dead tree limbs out of my system. At least for a while. I’m sure I will soon find a new theme to get stuck on. (preposition again)

Isaiah 40:31
31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Wayne