Terri Norris' Portraits & Images of Nature

One reason that we elected to visit Yellowstone in the May was the appeal of seeing the “Yellowstone Babies”…..red dogs (bison calves), elk calves, bear cubs, Bighorn sheep kids, and scores of other wildlife offspring are visible in the park during late spring and early summer. Of course, you wouldn’t have known from the weather that is was spring…the temperature was in the 40’s each day, and we experienced rain, hail, sleet and snow during the week.
Red Dogs, the calves of the American Bison, dot the landscape and also provide a food source for the predators of Yellowstone; coyotes, wolves and bears. The adult bison keep a watchful eye for hungry predators, who have offspring of their own to feed. The balance of nature is apparent and although all of the Red Dogs will not survive, their numbers are such that the herd population is stable.

Early this morning, at Yellowstone’s Blacktail Ponds, we watched wolves scavaging the last bits from a bison carcass. Last night’s fresh snow helped us track the wolves as they moved down the slopes to the ponds.

A Rose-Breasted Grosbeak from our Magee Marsh visit. These birds are so striking, yet they can be so non-obtrusive in the foliage that I am often surprised to look up and see them there.

We returned yesterday from our annual pilgrimage to Magee Marsh. The marsh is located on the southern shores of Lake Erie, just east of Toledo. During the migration, the marsh serves as a resting spot for birds to feed and rest before crossing the lake. Depending on weather patterns, the birds may be low in the trees and oblivious to the humans hoping to see them. In years past, we have witnessed “fallouts” where birds pile up at the marsh waiting for good weather for the crossing….resulting in large numbers of colorful sub-tropical warblers.
This year, we did not experience a real fallout….we were hopeful that the cool front and strong winds would keep the birds low and allow for good photography conditions, but for most of our visit the birds remained high in the trees and the numbers of birds remained low. Even so, there were some opportunities for images of some species, such as the Cape May, seen above.

I made a quick visit to Greene County yesterday hoping to find a flock of Bobolinks that had been reported. Along an isolated country road, bordered by alfalfa fields, I was able to locate about 25 of the yellow-capped birds. Photographing them was tricky. As I drove by, they would hop off of their perches in the longer grass down into the alfalfa. Even using a call did not bring them out as well as I had hoped. Exposure was also difficult….when one did decide to pose briefly, the harsh afternoon light obscured the detail in the blacks. Post-processing helped a bit, but I am looking forward to another session with them in better lighting situations.