Actually, it really doesn’t take much for a muley like this to hide. I just happened to spook it while doing some wind turbine shooting yesterday for a design house in Lubbock. To be completely honest, it really spooked me, seeing as how it jumped up about ten feet from my path and bounded off to a small lay of water nearby.

This young buck really isn’t worth showing in the grand scheme of wildlife photography (size-wise), but I like how the curiosity at his age allows him to stick around just a little bit, inquisitive on what I’m going to do next. Although I wasn’t out for wildlife yesterday, I still made it back to the FJammer (my wife likes to call my ride such) to grab a 7D and a 400mm f/5.6 L and take a walk around the brush to where this bachelor stood wary. He was smart enough to stand in the shade!

Owls are one of those special creatures that you just don’t see much of (me included), and it’s a shame, because they are one of the most beautiful, graceful birds I have ever seen/photographed. Although I’ve spent much more time photographing Barn Owls, I enjoy this photograph of an early morning Great Horned Owl perched atop a road sign in Blanco Canyon. I was out before the sunrise to photograph inside the canyon, catching a little siesta, when this raptor lighted on the sign. Owls are spotted close to the roads typically here in West Texas, but it’s not uncommon to see them near older houses and barns, as well as IN the ground (reference to the interesting, and extremely small, Burrowing Owl).

The shot’s a little noisy because of the ISO, but getting the shot was by far more important. Enjoy!

I was skimming through some images in my archive from a while back, and I happened across this one of a gray fox I photographed while helping Wyman Meinzer at a photo workshop at Cibolo Creek Ranch. The resort/ranch is located due south of Marfa, Texas, in the Big Bend (a jewel of the desert, and a photographers dream place). There’s a lesson to be learned here for sure, and that’s to keep in mind images that you have seen before and what you can do differently. In this case, the fox is perched quite a bit above the ground on a small outcropping. While this is not unusual for the fox, you don’t often just catch them in that spot through your lens. The fox eventually came down to a call imitating prey in distress, allowing for some closer shots, but this one turned out to be my favorite, purely from a natural historic perspective.

It’s all about the message!