Wildlife Photo Tour

Elegant Trogon

I have been a busy bee but having a great time.  I just realized I haven’t posted any information on Bird Photography Tours and Workshops.  Taking photographs of birds is one of my favorite photography adventures.  Every time I’m out photographing birds I come away with a good feeling about life and the world.  Bird photography helps me put things in perspective.  Visit workshops on my web page www.wildlifephototour.com for more information on tours and workshops.

I lead Bird Photography Tours and workshops throughout the southwest and Costa Rica.  Southern Arizona is one of the hot spots in the country with hummingbirds and Elegant Trogons in the summer and Sandhill Cranes and raptors in the winter. 

Hummingbird

During the summer months I conduct workshops at the Pond at Elephant Head where we concentrate on a variety of wildlife including baby Quail, and Cardinals etc. at the pond itself.  When the light gets harsh we move under a canopy and set up the hummingbird photography studio with four flashes and the Photo Trap Photography Trigger System.  We also spend time in Madera Canyon one of the Elegant Trogon hot spots.  Elegant Trogons are a Neo-tropical bird migrating to the US in the summer and only to southern AZ.

In the winter a photo tour to Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area in southern AZ to photograph the 30,000 Sandhill Cranes is a blast.  Many of those Lesser Sandhill Cranes migrate from as far as Siberia.   On the agenda for January is a tour to Aransas, TX to photograph the endangered Whooping Cranes.  I charter a boat to take just the tour to where we can get great photographs.  We tour the central TX coast photographing anything we can find including the Crested Caracara, the spectacular bird on the Mexican Flag.

Sandhill Cranes over the moon

Cactus Wren

Western-Diamondback-Rattlesnake

Here are a couple of photographs from my Wildlife Photograph Reptile Workshop conducted at the “Pond At Elephant Head”.   These photographs are of a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake at full Strike.  To capture the high speed strike of a rattlesnake you need to use an electronic photo trigger or you’ll miss it, your reflexes just aren’t fast enough, no one’s are.  I use the Photo Trap Photographic Trigger System in my reptile , bat, and hummingbird workshops.

Western-Diamondback-Rattlesnake

Timber-Wolf Reflections

Grizzly-With Stolen-Elk

Timber Wolf

I headed back to Teton National Park to try to get photographs of the Moulton Barn with the Tetons behind it to replace the photographs taken during the snow storms.  Here is one of them.  Because of my success at barn I thought about Yellowstone and, like the bear that went over the mountain to see what he could see, I decided to drive back through Yellowstone one more time – what a stroke of luck.  I came upon a “Jam” – about twenty cars parked along the road and everyone out watching something.  That something was a wolf pack feeding on a large bull elk.  As I watched the wolves a large grizzly came up and took the elk away and started to eat.  I photographed the event about three hours watching the wolves come back several times just to keep the grizzly honest.  I’m sure that the black wolf is a direct descendant of the evil wolf that tried to get “Little Red Riding Hood,” you decide.

Moulton-Barn-Grand-Tetons

I have to say, this is one of those experiences that makes me glad to be alive and a photographer.  Visit my web page www.wildlifephototour.com for more information on upcoming tours and workshops.

Tom

Coyote with dinner

While I was in Colorado I had an invitation from one of my Photography Tour  www.wildlifephototour.com clients to travel to Yellowstone Park and onto Montana for a week or so of shooting.  Needless to say I took her up on the invitation to share expenses for the trip.   We did have a bit of a problem, it snowed every day.

Attached is a wildlife photograph taken in Yellowstone of a Coyote with a bird that he had just caught for dinner.  Unfortunately I failed to photograph the capture.

Moulton Barn in Teton National Park

This shot is of the Moulton Barn photographed in Teton National Park just after and before snow storms.  I had been hopping for a great shot with the Teton peaks in the backgound, but alass it wasn’t to be.   Look for up coming information on Photographic Tours to Yellowstone and the Tetons.

Nature photography in Colorado is really something.  Fall colors are stunning and waterfalls are still falling

Waterfall Below Cinnamon Pass

hard.   Photographing waterfalls can be an extremely memorable, especially if you fall in one with your camera and all.  Let me start at the beginning.

I decided to get an early start and shoot fall colors on the way to photograph several waterfalls in Yankee Boy Basin above Ouray.  I left Cortez early heading north on highway #145 toward Telluride.

Waterfall Below Imogene Pass

Every thing went well and I was able to get numerous photographs before Murphy’s Law took over, “If Something Can Go Wrong, It Will.  Well it Did!  I tried to reach a small area in the middle of the stream to get the composition I visualized, then “Murphy”.

As I started the 4×4 drive out of Yankee Boy the oil cooler on my diesel blew, spewing at least a quart of oil

Waterfall In Yankee Boy Basin

out of the radiator coolant overflow and onto the ground.  After waiting for a couple of hours for the tow truck, and a fifty mile wrecker ride to the Ford dealer in Montrose I arrived back in Cortez in a rental car just prior to ten pm.  I don’t like Murphy!

Attached are a couple of photographs I’ve taken of Colorado waterfalls as part of my Nature Photography Tours.  The waterfall to the right is the one at Yankee Boy.  I took this photo after I fell in and was still mid stream.

I you have questions or comments please add them, Tom

Fall Colors

Here are a couple of  nature photographs  I’ve taken over the past several days, in and out of a snow storms I might add.  I’ve been having the time of my life and even scared witless a couple of times on very narrow, cliff sided, and snow packed two track roads over passes that I’m not sure were made for man.  At least not modern man.  These roads are left over from the gold and silver mining days in early Colorado.  How they cut them out of the rock I’ll never know.  I use the KOA Kampground in Cortez, CO as my base.  Some suggest using Durango as a base, but I find it too crowded and busy being a hot tourist and college town.

I’ve been photographing fall colors along what is call the “San Juan Skyway.”  The “Skyway” makes a loop heading north from Cortez, through Telluride, to Ridgeway.  At Ridgeway the “Skyway” does a 180 heading south through Silverton to Durango.  At Durango it heads west back to Cortez.  Along the “Skyway” you have a chance to go over, around and through some of the most spectacular country in the west including Passes over 11,000 feet like Cinnamon, Engineer, Imogene, Ophir, Black Bear.

Clear Lake Above Timber Line

Cinnamon Pass is 11,800 feet and can be accessed on a two-track road out of Silverton.  The trip from Silverton to Lake City is about thirty miles and took over three hours.  It is definitely a 4×4 road as are all of the roads over the passes.  Once below the timber line I photograph the fall colors.  For a great day, do a loop from Silverton to Lake City by way of Cinnamon Pass then return from Lake City to Silverton by way of Engineer Pass, also in the 11,000 feet class.

Imogene Pass is over 13,000 feet and gives you a spectacular view of the San Juan Mountain Range.  You access the road to Imogene Pass in the center of Telluride and head east over the pass ending up in the Ouray.  Again the nature photography was spectacular but only on the east side of the pass.  Heading up out of Telluride sends you through the ghost town of “Tommy Boy” at about 9,000 feet with very few evergreen trees and completely void of trees of color.  Tommy Boy was a working gold mine in late 1800’s and sold for over $2,000,000 in about 1902.  Do the math, what is $2,000,000 in today’s dollars

Ophir Pass heads east over the mountains about thirty miles south of Telluride.  This pass is not as spectacular to me as others but is worth the drive.  Fall colors can be found on the eastern slops like Imogene.   After a thirty plus mile drive over 12,000 feet the road brings you to the highway between Durango and Silverton.

I haven’t taken the Black Bear Pass trip yet and based on snow fall in the last several days I’m not sure I’ll have a chance this year.  Most locals say to avoid it, we’ll see.

Although I don’t have Colorado Nature Photography and Wildlife Photography Tours scheduled at this time I will be shortly so keep checking.

I just got back to southern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains to photograph nature scenes with an emphasis on fall colors.  I arrived just in time as the colors have just turned and are purely spectacular.  I had a chance to get out this afternoon and have attached one of the photographs I shot.  I’ll list more as I take them.