Today’s article could just as well be titled, Living Wild.

No insects or strange anomalies today. Just birds and our furry friends the mammals.

Bald Eagles are America’s symbol of freedom, independence, and when necessary, fierceness. They are near and dear to my heart, and I never missed the chance to photograph them.

In some respects, younger immature Bald Eagles can be even more beautiful than their older cousins.

A fully mature, and a young Eagle battle for fishing rights.

When you’re out photographing legendary birds like the Bald Eagle, by all means never forget the more common birds, such as this Canada Goose. They will give you great behavior and great poses, and do so with very little concern about your close presence. That makes sharp imagery easy to come by.

Even the common pidgeon can make for nice images.

Of course, most birds fly as you see in our first three photos of Bald eagles, and Snowy Owls are no different. They pose for us beautifully and I have shared dozens of such images on these pages. With that said, they burst into flight too and they often forecast the coming of that burst, and make it easy to grab a shot or two.

Short-eared Owls are cery tolerant of people and often pose nicely for portraits. 7b

A few words about about portraits.

When possible, do so without disturbing your subject. Close and personal portraits are always winners. I used a 500mm lens for this Rough-legged Hawk shot, I believe with a 1.4 converter added.

Of course, sharp, more distant images can often be cropped, and then everybody including the bird are winners.

When you are both physically close to a subject, and you are using a long lens, and you have fairly shallow depth of field with a small Fstop,the area of focus, is shallow. When you cannot get everything sharp, shoot for the eyes. Some call it the “window to the soul”

Let us finish today’s birds with a Short-eared Owl portrait.

We’ll return to birds in another post, but let us never forget mammals.

Bighorn Sheep are interesting and fairly easy targets.

Those below were made in South Dakota.

They can be easy targets but be cautious as they have been known to turn on people and charge them.

Pronghorns, are another great animal and they are very, very, fast. They do however, stop and check us out. Be ready.

Then there is the Rocky Mt. Elk.

There are many great places to find and photograph these guys in the American west, and Yellowstone N.P. is certainly one of the best.

These guys were photographed there and I would suggest not getting as close as I did. Long lenses, and cropping within reason will serve you well and will keep you safer than I was, and will serve the ubjects better too.

Nothing, including photographing wild animals, lasts forever. Do it when you can, and you will have memories for life. Nobody can take them away.

Above is Wayne the photographer, below is the Christian.

As I listen to preachers share the Gospel, it occurs to me that so many want to either make it so easy to please God, and others so impossible to please God.

The truth is in between.

We can all understand the Gospel if we desire, but when we learn from others, who or they are, or what religion we get our information from is very important.

Romans 14:12
So every one of us shall give account of himself to God

In other words, each of us is responsible for ourselves, and any blame cannot be shifted elsewhere.

God contacts and effects all of us. We need to answer.

Good church or bad church, good religion or bad, we, through personal one on one prayer and our relationship with God, will be responsible.

Group prayer in a “good” church is a wonderful thing. Just the same, do not allow them to sell you the bill of goods that personal. one on one preayer, is a lesser prayer or is even wrong. Close and personal is truly Holy.

God Bless,
Wayne