Archive for the ‘Wildlife’ Category
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
A young brown bear (Ursus arctos) walks through a stream hunting for spawning Sockeye Salmon. Grizzly bear, or coastal brown bear, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click the image for a larger version of the photo.
Hey folks
5-6 more weeks and the bears are running around the woods again!!!
I’ll be in the woods for the coming week, but I thought I’d post a brown bear photo, and schedule a couple of other blog posts for while I’m gone.
Catching this young blonde colored brown bear in some nice light was quite a treat. That’s the benefit of spending time in the field. Most wildlife photography, it seems, is done in places where the subject is pretty much a given; places like Homer for bald eagles, Yellowstone for elk, Churchill for polar bears, and Katmai National Park and Preserve for grizzly bears, or brown bears. So what makes the differernce? Light. (more…)
Tags: Alaska, Carl Donohue, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Skolai Images, Wildlife
Posted in Adventures, Alaska, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Photo Tours, Photography, Wildlife | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Comparison of Bear claws - black bear (Ursus americanus) claws, polar bear (Ursus maritimus), grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) and Kodiak bear claws. Please click on the image for a larger version of this photo.
Hey Folks,
I thought I’d post this shot, as it might be of interest to some folks. From left to right, the claws are: black bear, polar bear, grizzly bear, coastal brown bear or Kodiak bear.The polar bear is the only true carnivore out of those species, but it’s claws are but a fraction of the size of those belonging to the great grizzly, and in particular, the coastal brown bear.
Bear claws, and particularly the grizzly claws, were long revered as a symbol of power, both physical and spiritual, to many Native American Indian cultures; wearing the bear claw was often only an earned respect. Anyone’s who’s seen such fearsome weaponry up close can attest as to why.
The relationship of the polar bear and the grizzly bear is interesting. (more…)
Tags: bears, Carl Donohue, claws, Skolai Images, Wildlife
Posted in Grizzly Bears, Musings, Wildlife | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
A male Pine Grosbeak (Pinicola enucleator), perched on a small spruce tree in Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Please click the image to view a larger version of the photo.
Hey Folks,
Here’s a photo I took last spring of a male Pine Grosbeak. I had set up a couple of feeders around the Shack and these gorgeous birds would come in every day and have a good ole time. Other regular visitors to the buffet were Black-capped and Boreal Chickadees, Common Redpolls, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Gray Jays and, of course, the effervescent Red Squirrel. Ravens came by, from time to time, but rarely dropped down to the feeder. The Pine Grosbeaks were my favorite though.
The grosbeaks are actually a finch, the largest of the boreal finches. A group of these birds together is called, wait for it, a ‘gross’ of grosbeaks. They’re such a cool bird, and very tolerant of my puttering around the cabin; they’d generally ignore my comings and goings.
I grabbed a small white spruce sapling that some snow-machiners had run over and destroyed, and used it to set up the perch. For a background I hung a fleece blanket up and positioned it for a nice clean background. It’s a little bit ‘contrived’, but hopefully it works OK. (more…)
Tags: Alaska, Birds, Carl Donohue, finches, photos, Pine Grosbeak, Pinicola enucleator, Skolai Images, Wildlife, Winter, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Wrangell St. Elias
Posted in Alaska, Birds, Wildlife, Wrangell - St. Elias National Park | 3 Comments »
Saturday, November 28th, 2009
Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) soaring against the mountains of Kachemak Bay State Park, sunset, Homer, Alaska. Click on the image for a larger version.
Hey Folks,
Few creatures express the wild quite like a soaring bald eagle does.
This photo is presented as a memorial to the late Jean Keene, good friend and a dear lady, from Homer, Alaska. Jean’s love for the eagles gave bird lovers, wildlife lovers and photographers from all around the world a lifetime of amazing opportunity, but more than that she showed by example how to care about the creatures with whom we share the earth.
Thank you Jean – may you Rest in Peace.
Cheers
Carl
Tags: Alakska, alpenglow, Bald eagles, Birds, Carl Donohue, eagle, eagles, flight, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, Homer, in flight, Kachemak, Kachemak Bay, Mountains, soaring, sunset
Posted in Alaska, Birds, Musings, Wildlife | 3 Comments »
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
A grizzly bear (Ursus arctos), close and personal, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Click the image for larger version.
Hey Folks,
In honor of the recent decision (last week) by Judge Molloy of Montana to continue to have the grizzly bears listed under the Endangered Species Act (in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem), here’s a grizzly bear photo, from my recent trip to Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. In September the Court ruling was for the US Fish and Wildlife Service to relist the bears, but the F&WS requested the judge to reconsider. He reconsidered, and turned down their appeal, so the bears remain, for now, on the ESA. I’ll write a lengthy post about it later; for now I’m going to bed.
I think September was a good month for the bears – (more…)
Tags: Alaska, bear, Brown bears, Carl Donohue, grizzlies, grizzly, Grizzly Bears, Katmai, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Ursus arctos
Posted in Alaska, Environmental Issues, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Wildlife | 4 Comments »
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Hey Folks,
NB: I’ve now added this trip to the main section of guiding website, Alaskan Alpine Treks. By all means, browse this page, but please also visit the trip page here.
I’m excited to announce a Grizzly Bears in the Fall photo Tour for 2010. Details are posted on my Alaskan Alpine Treks website but I’ll copy it here as well:
This coming year, 2010, I’m running a new phototour to Katmai National Park and Preserve; we’ll be basecamping in remote southwest Alaska, photographing grizzly bears, dawn til dusk, for a week. Katmai National Park is home to some of the largest grizzly bears (or “brown bears” as they’re often called in that region) in the world. Feeding largely on salmon from some of the richest salmon runs in Alaska, the bears are magnificent creatures and there’s no better time to photograph them than in the fall. This trip offers an unsurpassed opportunity to photograph wild grizzly bears in a remote and brilliantly wild setting and promises some simply incredible photographic possibilities.
Schedule:
– Trip #1: Sept 19-25, 2010.
– Trip #2: Sept 26-Oct 2, 2010
Price:
– Fully Outfitted Camp and Guided Photo Tour: $2675.00
- Both trips (14 days): $4600.00
(more…)
Tags: Alaska, Alaskan Alpine Treks, Brown bears, Carl Donohue, Grizzly Bears, images, Katmai, Katmai National Park, Katmai National Park and Preserve, photo tour, photos, phototours, trips, Ursus arctos, workshop
Posted in Adventures, Alaska, Fall, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Landscape features, Photo Tours, Travel, Wildlife | 3 Comments »
Friday, November 6th, 2009
A dall sheep ram approaches while it grazes on the high alpine tundra, Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska.
Hey Folks,
Here’s a Dall sheep ram I photographed a few years back, when I was doing a hike in Denali National Park and Preserve. It’s been a couple of years now since I spent any time in Denali National Park (the last time I was beyond Savage River was on a trip with my parents, in 07). As much as I enjoy my project in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve, I do miss photographing in Denali. Hopefully this next year my schedule will work out such that I can squeeze in some time in Denali – and find this Dall sheep ram again.
It’s quite an experience having a full curl ram approach within inches of your eyeball. I remember I was lying down (as I wrote about here in an earlier post), and this ram got up from his slumber, (more…)
Tags: Alaska, Carl Donohue, Dal sheep, Denali, Denali National Park, Denali National Park and Preserve, photos, ram
Posted in Alaska, Bighorn and Dall Sheep, Denali National Park, Summertime, Wildlife | 6 Comments »
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Hey Folks,
As I said in a recent post, on my recent trip to Katmai National Park and Preserve I really hoped to make some images that featured not only the great grizzly bears, but also the awesome fall colors of the boreal forest . The Black Cottonwoods of the area provide the perfect background for photographing grizzly bears, but rarely do photographers seem to combine the 2. Most folks come up to Alaska and shoot the bears in the summer, and I think they’re missing out. The classic shot of a grizzly bear fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls is nice, and only generally possible mid-summer, of course, but there are a lot of other opportunities around in the fall that can be equally exciting. Great fall colors make stunning backdrops, and can really bring a vibrancy to the image. Stepping back, zooming out, and letting the scene dictate the photos is often the key.
In this photo I enjoy the sense of relationship between subject and environment – the dichotomy is largely only a function of our thought processing. The idea that the “environment” is something other than everything is a little peculiar; the subject IS the environment, as equally as the environment is the subject. There is really no difference between the bear and his habitat. (more…)
Tags: Alaska, animals, bears, Brooks River, Brown bears, Carl Donohue, fishing, Grizzly Bears, hunting, images, Katmai, Katmai National Park, Katmai National Park and Preserve, mammals, photos, predators, Ursus arctos, Wildlife
Posted in Adventures, Alaska, Fall, Forests, Grizzly Bears, Katmai National Park, Photo Tours, Travel, Trees, Wildlife | 6 Comments »
