We start today with a “grand slam”. Four images from four great wildlife/nature photographers.

Steve Race brings us this great ultra wide angle image of sea birds overhead. The image was made in England and I have seen very few made this way and none exactly like this. Steve had to be pretty close to the birds to accomplish this.

Jay Van Rensburg caught this Beaded Vulture either in landing mode or conceivably just before it made a kill.

Wildlife action photography slowed down to freeze-frame, when done well like this, is always a winner.

I have been fortunate to capture Snowy Egrets in a dark marsh, and do so with reflections. Having said that, I never caught a perfect flight shot with a perfect mirrored reflection the way Judy Schattner did in the image below. Great work!.

Insects are wildlife too and this colorful shot of a Leopard Lacewing Butterfly from Darrel Gullin is beautiful. I love the fact that the colors in the butterfly separate from the background via the “warm verses cool” factor!!

A few antiquated images of my own can be found below. They are in no way
intended for a comparison with the images above. The cameras and software
used alone, make for comparisons to be problematic.

Birds of prey.

Just cruising.

Mature Bald Eagle looking down for fish for breakfast.

Immature Bald Eagle checking the ice flows for openings……and fish.

A bird that often winters in these parts of Wisconsin, and then heads back to
Canada to breed, the Rough-legged Hawk.

Honey I’m home.

A male Osprey comes back to the nest, as his “significant other’ appears to ask
where have you been.

As digital photography came into being, and the ability to crop images came into
play, it became unnecessary to have 800mm behemoth lenses to capture exotic
wildlife in pictures. Often 300mm is plenty now, but even 400mm-5oomm  lenses
cost a lot less than 800s. This put good wildlife photography in the hands of
those who wanted to spend a more realistic sum, but still be in the game so to
speak. I think that’s a good thing.

I hope you enjoyed the “grand slam”, as well as four singles of my own.

God Bless,
Wayne