Favorite Images of 2017

As we all prepare to say goodbye to 2017, I want take time to share my favorite images of 2017. Looking back, this year has been one of much excitement as I have had chances to expand my work in what I am calling "Sciencetelling" to new audiences thanks to presenting at several science education conferences as well as joining up with the great folks at National Geographic Education where I am contributing to their blog on a regular basis.  You can find my updated author page HERE! 

These exciting additions to my life resulted in fewer opportunities to get out and shoot images this year, but I still had a great time on vacation this summer in Utah and Colorado where I fell in love with the Red Rock Country of the intermountain west! In addition to shooting nature as I have done for years, I have begun to explore shooting local theatre productions in North Texas where I live. In particular, Allen's Community Theatre, where my wonderful wife, Robyn both acts and directs. You can expect to see tidbits of both of these in my year end retrospective as well as some images I took on a final walkthrough of the science building I worked in for the past 27 years - it's was demolished in June as we replace it with a new, state of the art science center. 

Thanks for visiting and I am looking forward to utilising this space for a wider range of sciencetelling and photography in the coming year!  HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

Western Landscapes (click to view high res versions) 

Black Canyon National Park

View from top of Grand Mesa

Lone Pine at Colorado National Monument

Balanced Rock at Colorado National Monument

"Weathering Sentinel" at Colorado National Monument 

The Coke Ovens - Colorado National Monument

"Verticality" at Colorado National Monument

The Long & Winding Road"  - Canyonlands NP

Animals (click to view high res versions) 

Utahraptor stalks a small child - Moab Giants -, Utah

T. Rex at Moab Giants - Utah

 

Yellow Bellied Marmot - Colorado

"Sharptooth" at Colorado Gators Reptile Park

Camouflaged Gator at Colorado Gators Reptile Park

"Cruisin'" at Colorado Gators Reptile Park

            The Old Science Building (click to view high res versions)

Warning sign in the Science Lecture Hall

"Break it Early...."

Faucet & Nozzle

"Impossible is Nothing"

Theatre (click to view high res versions)

Victor Von Frankenstein - from Young Frankenstei  

Reanimating the Monster - Young Frankenstein

"Ride in Ze Hay" - Young Frankenstein

The Monster - Young Frankenstein

King Henry and Alais - Lion in Winter

Queen Eleanor & King Henry - Lion in Winter

Back in Africa!

Greetings from South Africa – I safely arrived two days ago and am happily at home in the bush at the wonderful nThambo Tree Camp in the Klaserie game reserve just to the west of Kruger National Park. 

My travels halfway around the world was as pleasant and uneventful as any 10,000 mile voyage could have been! I wish to single out two people who made my travel from Dallas to Johannesburg more enjoyable. First is Jerri Thomas one of the flight attendants on my Dallas to Atlanta flight. When space for my carry on camera gear was sparse, she went out of her way to find a way to keep my precious gear in the main cabin rather than forcing me to check it --- and she did all of this with a genuine smile while working on July 4th.  THANKS Jerri!  Second was my waitress at the Atlanta airport TGIFriday’s Devona was absolutely as welcoming, pleasant, and funny as I could have hoped for given that she was working a very busy shift on the 4th of July. Her great good cheer and ready laugh was another bright spot which made a long trip much better than it might have been. THANKS Devona!

16 hours across the Atlantic Ocean was tiring but thankfully easy. I was warmly greeted and hosted for the night by my friend Dave, one of South Africa’s great caving pioneers. The following day, it was back to the Airport to catch my flight to Hoedsprit, the gateway to the Kruger region of South Africa.

After a short and enjoyable drive to nThambo with Enoch, I settled into my “Chalet”, a luxurious tent set on top of a platform 20 feet high. Camp Manager Lily did a fine job of welcoming me to the camp and orienting me to the daily pulse of this great camp. A delicious lunch was followed by getting to meet my guide Luan, and our tracker, Isaac. I also became acquainted with the other guests who were from Germany, South Africa, and Seattle. 

Our first game drive began slowly as the only unusual animal we encountered in the first hour was the threatened Ground Hornbill – It was busy trying to make a meal of a Leopard tortoise. Looking at this bird you might think I had made a wrong turn into "Jurassic World"!

As the sun sank and the sky began to take on the hues of a lovely sunset, the rhinos made their appearance – We started with one young bull and were joined by two rhino cows within moments! 

 

Thing then got better as we followed them to the local water hole where we were treated to the presence of three more rhinos! We enjoyed our sundowners there as we watched the rhino calf suckle as the sky grew progressively orange. 

We then began our trip back to camp and dinner, but were treated once more to the beauty of the bush when we came across two lionesses known as the Ross Pride Breakaway females because they left the larger Ross pride to strike out on their own. 

 

Seeing them relaxing in the darkness was exciting and a perfect end to my first full day back in Africa! 

Off to South Africa!

Greetings Blue Lion friends! This post is to give you a preview of what’s going to be happening on the Blue Lion Blog over the coming weeks. I am in the process of getting ready to depart on a 3 week trip to South Africa that I am looking forward to sharing with all of you. 

The first part of my trip will occur once I land in South Africa from July 6th – 12th. I’ll be spending that time at the unique NThambo Tree Camp – a really interesting small safari camp located in the Klaserie Nature Preserve just west of Kruger National Park. This camp attracted me because of its small size and very small eco footprint as the camp only houses a maximum of 10 guests in 5 rooms (or “chalets” as they are called). Each of these chalets is basically a high quality tent that sits atop a 20 foot tall platform. I’m excited at the possibility of having any of the wildlife in the area potentially sleeping under my floor on any given night!  Check out this video that was shot in May of a Cheetah kill that was next to the chalet I’ll be staying in! 

Promo video for Nthambo Tree Camp

While at NThambo I’ll do my best to share images and video, but WiFi connection in the South African bush are pretty spotty, even on a good day. 

On July 12th I’ll fly back to Johannesburg and have a great opportunity to reconnect with Dr. Lee Berger and his team at Wits University. During my time here, I will be working to help develop curricular materials surrounding the Rising Star Expedition’s discoveries from 2013. The over 1700 fossils that were recovered during a challenging month long excavation in a cave located within the Cradle of Humankind near Johannesburg.  During the expedition in November 2013 Dr. Berger's team live tweeted the daily events and I then created a "Twitter Play by Play" which is here on the blog - Rising Star Expedition Blog Post - 11/2013 . You'll hopefully hear about results of Rising Star in the news once the findings are officially published in scientific journals.

During my time there I will be studying fossils from Rising Star as well as the nearby site of Malapa where Australopithecus sediba was discovered in 2009. I will also be interviewing researchers involved with both projects so that my future students, fellow teachers, and the general public can gain a better appreciation of the science and the scientific process behind such discoveries. 

Skull of "Karabo" a young male Australopithecus sediba individual.

Please feel free to revisit the Blue Lion Blog to stay updated on my my photographic & scientific adventures this coming month. Also feel free to post comments and questions below. I’ll do my best to reply! 

On Safari - Wounded Pride

As you may recall from earlier posts, during my African Safari I had the opportunity to follow a small lion pride over the course of several days. On the Ngala property there are three different prides of lions that crisscross much of the territory. It seems that this property was on the edge of their territories and thus none of the three prides staked it out as core territory. The largest of the prides, the Birmingham pride numbers over 20 different lions. Unfortunately, they were spending most of their time in the Kruger National Park during my visit so I did not get a chance to see them. The smallest of the three groups with several new, young males were looking to take over an existing pride. These young rogue males also didn't make an appearance during my visit. The lions I did get a chance to see were a pride of four lions: One adult lioness and her three sub adult children. We encountered them at three separate times during my visit. The first encounter (documented in my post "On Safari - Part One") involved them stalking a herd of impala.



The second encounter involved us following them through some very heavy brush. Despite the thickness of the brush, I was able to get some nice views but you can definitely tell they were not too keen on us being that close!



The third and final encounter with this pride was at the far side of the property as they came down to drink at a water hole in the early morning.




We had heard reports that they had been involved with a carcass in the overnight hours. No one was able to tell if they had made a kill and this was their carcass or if they were trying to steal it from some other predator. The result was that there had clearly been a battle over this carcass. When we caught up with this pride, we observed that the mother lioness had certainly taken the brunt of a very significant fight. As you can see from these images, she had some significant wounds to her flank and her head. What the still images don't show is that she was walking remarkably easily given the nature of her wounds. Those of us with less experience were concerned that these wounds might indeed prove fatal to her. However, our ranger assured us that such wounds while certainly running the risk of infection usually would not be fatal. Another concern brought up by these wounds is if the matriarch of this pride was wounded, would it impact her ability to make sure that her sub adult children could survive to adulthood with the hunting skills they needed. Only time will truly tell.

 One thing this encounter clearly demonstrates is that life in the African bush is never easy. Those of us who do not encounter the drama of the African bush on a daily basis easily forget that hunting for your food each day is not without great peril. Aside from the dangers inherent in killing prey that does not want to be killed, there's also the risk of dealing with confrontation from other predators who want what you may have. The story of this lion pride and my visits with them clearly shows the grittier side of Mother Nature. As much as we may want it to seem like it's a Disney movie, survival often has a rather R-rated script to it.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Should you find yourself driving through south central Colorado, I strongly recommend that you take a break from the road and wander over to Great Sand Dunes National Park (GSDNP). These are the highest sand dunes in the United States, reaching an elevation of 750 feet. 

Click in the image to see a high resolution version

These dunes are particularly interesting as they are obviously not coastal and thus all the more unusual. According to the National Park Service, Great Sand Dunes National Park is significant for a range of reasons including:

• GSDNP contains the tallest dunes in North America and one of the most fragile and complex dune systems in the world
• GSDNP protects a globally significant, water- and wind-driven system, which includes creeks that demonstrate surge flow, a rare hydrologic phenomenon 
• GSDNP provides tremendous scenic settings that, for many, provoke strong emotional responses. These settings (including massive dunes surrounded by alpine peaks, a desert valley, creeks flowing on the surface of the sand, pristine mountains, and rural range land) offer spacious relief from urban America, exceptional solitude and quiet, and a remarkably unspoiled day and night sky
• GSDNP hosts a great diversity of plants and animals, including insect species found nowhere else on earth. The system, which spans high desert to alpine life zones, supports rare biological communities that are mostly intact and functional
• GSDNP contains some of the oldest (9,000+ years before present) known archaeological sites in America. The dunes have been identified as having special importance by people of various cultures, and the area is recognized for the culturally diverse nature of human use

Click in the image to see a high resolution version

A few hours spent exploring this unique environment will stay with you for years afterward! 

On SAFARI - Africa's Smallest Carnivore

This post is to share a video I made of a short visit at the den of some Dwarf Mongooses (Helogale parvula) during my visit to the Ngala Safari Lodge on the western edge of the world famous Kruger National Park in South Africa. Enjoy your time with these cute little carnivores!