Category: Blog

March 12, 2017

The Week of the River Otters

This North American river otter posed for Kay along the Middle Fork of the John Day River, Grant County, Oregon. After years of sightings with poor (or no) photo ops, Terry and Kay both experienced outstanding opportunities to produce wonderful images of this beautiful creature.

Terry’s history with otters.

I’ve always been very interested in river otters. As a kid growing up in Prairie City (Eastern Oregon), I spent immeasurable hours fishing for trout on the main fork of the John Day River and wondered why we never saw any. If otters had been present, I would have seen them.

As I grew older, and left my past outdoors-man lifestyle in exchange for nature photography, I really wanted to photograph the North American river otter. I traveled farther afield and saw more and more of them. To my great dismay, I could not seem to produce a decent photograph.

Years ago, I spotted a group of otters that seemed to be feeding in the Yellowstone River. I parked my rig, got out and set up a big lens to try to photograph them. Hordes of nature photographers populate Yellowstone National Park in the fall of the year. A lens on a tripod pointing at a subject is an immediate draw. Instantly I had nearly fifteen photographers joining me at the roadside. Meanwhile, the otters moved to the river bank nearer to us. A tourist approached with a point-and-shoot camera. Not having a long lens, he walked right up to the bank for his picture. At that point, one of the otters popped out of the water and began to sniff his pant cuff. The tourist started to re-position himself for a shot at it. The big lens photographers shouted at him, “Don’t move! Don’t move!” – sounding as though they were in total command. I was so disgusted with their arrogant and very overbearing performance that I wanted to shout back at them that tourists have as much right to get a photo as they did. I sure didn’t get any worthwhile photo of otters on this day. For whatever reason, I’ve always had difficulty getting good otter shots.

Terry Steele is checked out by a North American river otter at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon. They are playful and curious. As a favor to the museum, he was photographing exhibit animals for their brochures, newsletters and general publicity. For his own portfolios, captive animals are never acceptable subjects.

Several years later, in Big Cypress National Preserve near Everglades National Park in Florida, I encountered otters twice. The light was so poor that I had to shoot 400 ISO speed film. This film produced very grainy photos, not good for much but a slideshow. At least I got a couple of pretty nice otter shots.

North American river otter, Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida – eating catfish.

North American river otter in Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida.

There is not enough room here for me to tell of all the opportunities to photograph otters that didn’t work out. However, my wife Kay, doesn’t seem to be walking under the same dark cloud in this regard. I’ll let her tell about the week of the otters we recently experienced.
– TRS

The Week of the Otters

Early February, 2017, Grant County, Oregon.

A river otter, emerges from the water with a wet, slick coat as it traverses the broken ice slabs pushed along the banks.

We’ve just experienced a harsh winter that produced unusually thick ice on our two local rivers – the North Fork and Middle Fork of the John Day River. A sudden thaw brought an abrupt breakup of the ice in early February. Terry headed down to the North Fork to check it out. He was rewarded by a surprise encounter with a pair of river otters. They obliged him with wonderful photos. (This link to our last slide show of the season, Winter Wildlife in Grant County, Oregon – Part III, includes his otter photos.)

Four days later, Terry drove us up the Middle Fork, providing me the opportunity to photograph whatever we could spot. I never dreamed I’d have a chance to track another otter along the river.

We followed this otter a mile up the Middle Fork of the John Day River. It traveled along the bank and swam areas of open water, all the while keeping an eye on us as it appeared to enjoy itself climbing over ice sheets and playing in the pockets of deep snow.

This time the light was good, and the otter was very cooperative. Again, the large blocks of ice in fast flowing water seemed to force the otter out of the river to travel along the bank.

River otters are constant motion. This one is travelling the river bank when a sudden thaw released huge ice blocks in the flow and made travel by water high risk.

This constantly moving otter paused long enough to play in the snow. It dived out of sight, popped up and sledded on its belly – all for the fun of it.

A river otter loves to play in the snow. Throwing its arms back along its sides, it sleds down the snowy bank to the river’s edge.

The river otter pushed itself along in the snow, sledding, rolling and frolicking its way to the river’s edge.

Repeatedly, Terry moved us up the river with the otter as I photographed it running along the bank, climbing over ice slabs and swimming stretches of open water. I don’t expect to have another opportunity like these two days for a long time; but we seem to have broken the otter jinx Terry had been living through past years.

A river otter, playing in the snow, pauses to keep an eye on the photographer focused on its antics.

November 30, 2015

Africa, the Wildlife Photography Continent

Wildlife Photography in Kruger and Kagalagadi

We are trying to put together another wildlife photography adventure abroad. First, we are challenged by two big limitations – funds and language barriers. Our trip to South Africa in 2003 was ideal in terms of being able to travel in an English speaking country on our own without the expense of a guide. That attracts us to return there again. We have outstanding new photo equipment that would be thrilling to focus on the extremely diverse and plentiful wildlife that exists in Africa. It is the best wildlife continent on the planet.

However, we cannot hope to spend the time or money we did in the past when we traveled 7000 miles to photograph wildlife in so many national parks and reserves throughout South Africa. This presents us with another great dilemma – do we go for the gorgeous scenic Kagalagadi of the Kalahari Desert or Kruger National Park?

As an example of how this dilemma plays out, consider the leopards that occupy both habitats. Kagalagadi Transfrontier Park is an open reserve of lovely colored sand dunes and ancient river bottoms where wildlife congregates at watering holes during the dry season. The animals are free to roam unlimited miles and are able to avoid scarring brush and frequent competitors. They are outstanding specimens, but they are harder to locate. Subjects that do appear before us are more often found in the open in an aesthetic setting. (The leopard below was photographed in Kagalagadi.)

Kruger, on the other hand, is a huge national park (the size of Israel) that is mostly fenced. It has the densest populations of wildlife in South Africa and most likely the entire world. Encounters with predators are frequent. The thorny bushveld that characterizes much of the landscape is scarring, often unsightly, and it is difficult to photograph animals that are brushed up. (The next leopard was photographed in Kruger.)

As we consider revisiting Africa, we are reviewing volumes of slides and digital images taken during our previous adventure there. This discussion will continue. Through this process we will establish an African Gallery. It will offer an impressive number of species that only a trip to Africa could hope to produce.

July 31, 2015

Instinct & Grace of Sandhill Crane Parents

Photo: Terry Steele

Nearly 20 years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service chose my husband Terry’s stunning photograph of a Greater Sandhill Crane as their brochure’s cover image for Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Southeast Oregon. That it continues to be an iconic image for the refuge today is not surprising, because Malheur NWR is a summer breeding ground for a population of these large dancing birds with the hauntingly beautiful, bugling calls. In May of 2015, refuge employees, volunteers and visitors to Marshall Pond at Malheur Headquarters were treated to a refuge first – a water’s edge view of nesting cranes.

Just as the chicks (colts) were due to hatch, a sudden storm system caused local flash-flooding and the eggs were in danger of being inundated by rapidly rising water. While those of us who had invested in a month-long observation of parenting sandhill cranes tried to maintain an attitude of acceptance of this natural event, we admitted to feelings of defeat and resignation that the nest would fail in the eleventh hour. “So close to hatching, how tragic!” However, these young parent birds, probably first time nesters, drew upon their innate, hard-wired knowledge of the ages and immediately built up the nest with hollow dry reeds as they maneuvered the eggs to a safe position. The nest floated!

The euphoria among us was shameless, especially for seasoned scientific observers! But nothing I have ever experienced prepared me for the surprise behavior of the parents as they led their two hatched colts to and from their nest site just a few days later.

Here begins a pictorial story showing the mother crane on the nest just before dusk. The father is standing guard above the pond with two newly hatched colts. As she calls to him, he plows a trail for the young colts with his body through the thick reeds, leading them to the safety of the nest for the night. The wonder of instinct that led the parents to rescue the nest, and then to pave the path to safety for the colts’ was simply extraordinary. It was an elegant ballet of very gentle, careful, protective behaviors – parenting that will be counted as one of the grandest nature events ever witnessed.

July 26, 2015

Northern Pacific Rattlesnake & Prey

July 26, 2015 – Ritter Road, Grant County, Oregon

The Northern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus oreganus) is the lead subspecies of the Western Rattlesnake.

When Terry comes bursting in the door before I have finished my first cup of coffee saying “Kay, you have to come out here, something has these birds stirred up!” you know it is going to be an interesting day. Several Cassin’s finches had been trying to come to their watering dish on the ground, but abruptly flared up and away before landing there. I had one word for Terry, “Snake!”

We quietly approached the birds’ watering dish at the base of the ponderosa pine tree. From twenty feet away, Terry saw a beautiful fresh-shed, green-hued Northern Pacific Rattlesnake along side the dish. It took a closer look to realize it had in the grips of its jaws a juvenile Cassin’s finch, already dead from the snake’s venom. The next 15-20 minutes was an amazing show of how this snake consumes its prey. This photo story pretty much tells the story, with just a few notes to detail the process.

To swallow the finch, the snake used its fangs and teeth to walk the bird’s body back into its throat.After moving the prey into the neck region, the snake put a crook in its body and seemed to press the prey down towards its tail area by moving the crook towards the rear. Finally, it went through several stretching motions to realign its jaws into their normal position. Both of us were on cameras from different positions to capture all this.

We relocated the snake for a final couple of poses before Terry removed it from near our house and released it unharmed. Warning: Although this snake had a nice set of rattles, it never once rattled a warning!