Let’s finish the week with some Honorary Cats™. The CBC has a series of fox pictures by Ian Murray from Nova Scotia, one of which took first place in the “baby animals” category of the National Wildlife Federation’s annual photo contest. Here it is:
Murray’s comments from the CBC site:
Ian Murray of Wallace River spent May through July watching the fox family this summer to capture the tender moment.
“The foxes were great: their shyness at first, then their acceptance of me once they knew I was no threat. And best of all was their interactions between themselves and especially with their mother,” he told CBC News.
“She was, is such a good, attentive mom. She almost wasted away to nothing over the summer as she put all her energy into hunting and bringing home food for the babies.”
And I might as well put up a few of the other winners:
Dragana Connaughton, Palm Beach Florida. “Birds”, second place. I love this photo! And note the even spacing: those birds like their personal space.
Crisscrossing a vivid sky, utility lines offer a sunset perch for a massive flock of starlings. “It looked like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds,” says Dragana Connaughton, who spotted the scene while driving home. She stopped to capture this study of pattern and light.
Cindy Goeddel, Bozeman, Montana. “Mammals”, first place.
Deep snow, long shadows and a willful line of bison yield a powerful portrait of a charismatic animal in one of America’s most iconic landscapes: Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. A professional guide and photographer, Cindy Goeddel made this image on a frigid February afternoon while leading tourists through the park, home to more than 4,000 genetically pure wild American bison.
Chris Schenker, Hopkinton, Massachusetts. “Connecting people with nature”, first place:
A whirling tornado of bohar snappers dwarfs a diver photographing the fish off Ras Mohammed National Park at the southern tip of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
And two photos of thirsty animals. The first, from Kathy Noteboom of Bayfield, Wisconsin, won second place in the same category as the photo above.
European honeybees find cool relief on a summer day, using their strawlike tongues, or proboscises, to sip water from a backyard birdbath.
Finally, Linda Krueger of Hastings, Minnesota took second prize in the “backyard wildlife” category with this photo.
When this black-capped chickadee swooped in to grab a drink from a garden hose, Linda Krueger grabbed her camera to catch the whimsical moment.
I’m going to add one reader’s photo here, which just arrived in my inbox. It’s by Anne-Marie Cournoyer of Montreal, and I’ll call it “Winter Squirrel,” even though it’s not quite winter. Look how chubby and furry it is. Truly, Canadian squirrels are extra fat this winter!
h/t: Caroline J.
All are great. May favorite is the bison.
Mine too. I wonder how the trail blazer in front gets determined.
I, too, like the evenly-spaced birds photo and their personal space. I took a similar photo of birds on wires under a bridge in downtown Seattle.
What is the proper channel to submit to readers wildlife photos?
Google “Jerry Coyne University of Chicago”, click on his page, and look for his email address.
Thank You Stephen.
My pleasure. Remember, Jerry wants only good photos!
As this website becomes more popular it must be a double edged sword for Jerry. On the one hand, that must be gratifying. On the other, he can’t keep up with all the comments.
The photo of the bees is amazing. I’m a fox lover too. Yesterday’s photo from Siberia was great too. Honorary Cats!
Wonderful shots, but, at least on my screen they look pretty low resolution. Especially the birds on the wires. Am I the only one? Maybe they knocked them down so you’d want to buy the calendar instead of printing them at home.
That was impression as well. The birds-on-wires shot is focussed at infinity, to make the sunset sharp. A more narrow aperture (higher f-stop) could have improved it, but it was a low-light exposure so that may not have been feasible. The composition is what makes this photo work.
Any photo will suffer when reduced to screen size. The bees and the chickadee (my second favorite, after the bison) are the sharpest.
I like photos that make me think of an action, like a mini-narrative. What is the animal doing?
The fish swarm and the bison were my faves. I wonder if the leading bison is an alpha male or just the unlucky one who has to do all the heavy lifting.
I’m thinking that like large birds flying in formation they might switch positions.
I think this is where the phase breaking trail comes from.
Those are wonderful, and I too especially like the bird one. A photographer must always go around with a mental 3X5 rectangle in their head, looking for the next image.
I love fat sqrlz!!! More, more, more, more!!!
Just to note that the bees shown drinking are not about to cool themselves. I was advised many years ago (by my beekeeper boss) that on very hot days the bees will carry water to the hive, deposit it on the metal base, and as it evaporates, fan furiously at the entrance to the hive, thus using latent heat transfer to cool the hive. Very clever.
so very amazing that they would have learned/evolved to do this with so many steps involved to see the benefit.
My goodness, I always assumed the plural would be “probosces” but it’s actually “proboscises” (or “proboscides”). Learn something new every day!
“Why do you never see an insect drinking from a pool of water?”, asked Julian Huxley in his essay “The size of living things”. This puzzled me, for I had seen it numerous times. My favorite: the drinking bees.
When I saw the photo of the bees sticking out their tongues to drink the water, I somehow immediately thought about this presentation. 😉
Nice pics!
That one of the honeybees soaking their proboscises in the birdbath brought me back to my days tending bar during law school.