More Critters!

Here are a few more images - taken at various points on my photographic learning curve - of the creatures that fascinate me. All were shot on film and then scanned. Above, seagulls atop the Sunview Motel in Rehoboth Beach, DE in 1985. I was too comfortable to get up from my beach towel, so this was shot using every millimeter of my zoom.

Still unwilling to move, I shot this beggar at a range of about 12 feet. Rehoboth - 1985.

Who can resist a kitten? Not me. Especially not little Tarzan, captured here with his "Dad" in Damascus, MD in the first few days of 1995.

Butterfly and roadside flowers along Route 3 in Virginia's Northern Neck - 1999.

With slow film, inadequate light and no flash, I wasn't quite able to freeze this peacock as sharply as I'd have liked (didn't quite nail the manual focus, either), but I find his colors and downright hostile expression to be irresistible. St. Augustine, FL - 1999.

I've always loved sandpipers, but they are really tough to photograph. The rascals in this shot were scampering along the surf at dawn (DAWN! I was up at dawn, once!) in Naples, FL in 1999. I caught them just as one bird decided to go rogue and reverse direction.

Odd Bird Out - near Pier 39 in San Francisco, CA - 1987. On the other side of the railing is a 25-foot drop to a busy highway, so I don't know what this web-footed little guy was thinking. Also not sure what kind of bird this is. Anyone?

Speaking of animals that are hard to photograph...
Hummingbird Pit Stop - Lancaster, VA - 2001.

Squirrels, on the other hand, are more than happy to sit up and strike (and hold!) a pose for the camera. This is one of my mother's overfed little rodents in Rockville, MD in 1991.

I have hundreds of better shots of DC's current giant pandas, but this 1996 image of a pensive old Hsing-Hsing alone in his yard conveys more about the species - and about this bear in particular - than I can put into words here.

THANKS FOR VISITING. Coming soon - the cruising years: mountains and barns and churches and all sorts of oddball discoveries from the mid-Atlantic states...