agrumpybirdphotographer said:

If you're like me there are some occasions when I’m out photographing birds that something happens to make one encounter more memorable than others.
It may have just been a chance encounter, something a little more planned such as a hide day, a trip to a specific location or a species never seen before. It also may not result in the best photograph but the encounter with the particular wildlife just stays with you.

Here’s four of mine, I’d love to hear yours ?

There is a well known location locally, top of a big hill, where Dotterel stop on their way north to breeding grounds in Scotland. I had never seen this species before but laden with camera gear made the climb more in hope than anything else as the birds tend to move on quickly. As it turned out there were several very confiding male and females which would come really close and allow stunning views. It certainly made the long slog worth it.

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Along the coast from Benbecula Airport in the Outer Hebrides is a small inlet known to birdwatchers as “stinky bay” which certainly lives up to the name! It turns out it was a brilliant to watch and photograph waders in full summer plumage, even if it meant lying in amongst the smelly seaweed to get this Sanderling image.

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The Roller was taken on a short stay in southern Spain, these stunning birds winter in Africa and return to the Mediterranean and Eastern European countries to breed. They can be very skittish and get difficult to get close to but I was lucky that one bird settled in a bush right next to where we had parked up in our hired car which meant some frantic snapping but resulted in one very happy photographer.

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Finally the Spotted Flycatcher, a summer visitor to these shores. I was trying to photograph Martins and Swifts at a local river when a pair of Spotted Flycatchers appeared. It looked like there was a nest near by but they weren’t bothered at all by me and happily hunted insects for around an hour giving some great opportunities and close views.

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splatbass said:

My wife and I were on Kauai and went to Kilauea Lighthouse to take landscape pictures. It is next to a wildlife refuge, but it was closed due to COVID so we weren't expecting to see wildlife on the lookout area for the lighthouse. But on the hillside next to the lookout area, almost level with us, there was a red footed booby with a baby. Luckily I had a 200-500 with me. D750, 200-500. It would have been nice if it wasn't mid-afternoon, but I'm still happy with it.


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FB101 said:

Mine don’t come with pictures (Un)fortunately. All 3 took place during on-foot tracking / safaris in Tanzania.

The first one was meeting face to face with a hyena at night - my tent was just a little off the rest of the camp because of terrain (really not far, maybe 20 or 30 meters) but that was enough for the hyena to plant itself on my path between the camp fire and my tent. I only had my big maglite to protect myself and that seemed suddenly very inadequate. Thankfully the cook saw me stopped with my light fixed in one spot and he just came running, screaming and banging on a trash can lid with his spoon.

The second was the same trip, different site when a lion pride came through the camp at night. hearing them brush against the tent is unnerving but that low guttural call they have is just plain scary. I get that preys just freeze, it kicks you in the stomach, right into the most primitive fears. And after 15mn they moved on - still the most scary time of my life.

The third unfortunately did not end well; one of our co-travelers on a different walking safari did what everybody knew never to do. He walked away from our camp to take a picture of a solitary Buffalo. He got quite close, without problem and was able (based on what we later got from a local who saw the scene play out from afar) to walk backwards away from the Buffalo maybe 30 meters or so. Feeling safe he apparently turned around and started walking back to camp - the Buffalo charged him and threw him up in the air, pierced his lung. He died on the bush plane taking him to the nearest hospital. Buffalos, like hippos are not to be trifled with.

i dI’d all these in my early twenties (a long time ago) and I wouldn’t do this nowadays but it’s unforgettable if you ever get to do it. Most pictures are terrible, we didn’t have stabilizers back then and only Kodachrome 64 so most shots are blurry

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NorthernFocus said:

Here's another moose encounter. This goofy young bull trotted all the way across the valley to come check me out. Then it just trotted back from whence it came. You can see in every frame below he is definitely looking straight at me the entire time. I was standing upright and out in the open. I figure it was near sighted and from afar I looked like a lady moose ?

Nikon D4/AF-S 80-400mm

1) When I first saw this guy he emerged from the hemlock thicket seen at top of frame probably 300-400 yards away. He was coming toward me at a steady trot.

2) Still coming. At this point I hoped he would stop and not cross to my side of the creek.

3) Well now he's on my side of the creek and still coming. Beginning to get a little concerned now as I'm standing in a wide open area with no cover. And I'm pretty sure he can run faster than me. My only option is a big rock nearby that I could scramble on top of if necessary. Or pepper spray as a last resort.

4) Now I'm talking to him. Rather loudly. "Hey ,big boy, I'm not a moose." And judging whether I can make it onto the rock.

5) Finally he changes course and walks a circle all the way around me maybe 25-30 yards away. Then just trots back across to where he started. In this pick I zoomed out to capture more of the landscape.

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Doug Herr said:

I love the fall colors of the tundra.

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criegel said:

I was in Canada fishing on a June afternoon. We pulled into a cove to fish for pike and caught this black bear and her cubs cooling off in the lake.
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Rassie said:

The black rhino is the smaller of the two types found in Africa but is the more bad-tempered and aggressive of the two.
On a South African safari in 2016 a very agitated black rhino came very close to our Land Rover. I had the Nikkor 70-200mm lens on a Nikon D7100 and the lens was too long, even zoomed out to 70mm. I was sitting on the right hand side of the open vehicle (no roof or windows) and the animal came right up to the side of the vehicle, so close that I could have stretched out a hand and touched it. The rhino was snorting and scratching in the dirt throwing up dust, and running around like something possessed. Our guide thought it may have been responding to the smell of a rival male, or alternatively a female in the area.

Having that agitated animal so close by merited a pucker factor of 10.

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splatbass said:

My wife and I were on Kauai and went to Kilauea Lighthouse to take landscape pictures. It is next to a wildlife refuge, but it was closed due to COVID so we weren't expecting to see wildlife on the lookout area for the lighthouse. But on the hillside next to the lookout area, almost level with us, there was a red footed booby with a baby. Luckily I had a 200-500 with me. D750, 200-500. It would have been nice if it wasn't mid-afternoon, but I'm still happy with it.


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criegel said:

I was in Canada fishing on a June afternoon. We pulled into a cove to fish for pike and caught this black bear and her cubs cooling off in the lake.
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Doug Herr said:

No photos of the actual incident, photo just to illustrate the species in the story.

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One of my earliest national photo credits was an American Pika (Audubon magazine, September 1974 inside front cover) so when I first visited Alaska I had the goal of photographing the other North American pika, the Collared Pika. Pikas live in talus slopes in the mountains and I had found good candidate habitat and had heard what I believed was the animal's bleats from the area, so I scrambled upslope and found a good rock to sit on and observe whatever goings-on there may have been. I had the camera ready with my faithful 300mm Nikkor-H, minimum focus distance 13'. A PK-3 extension tube was in my pocket just in case I needed it. After a few minutes I heard the pikas' bleats and was anticipating a sighting when I heard a rustling in the talus below my perch, then a Collared Pika climbed on the rock with me, sniffed my pants, and spent a few minutes with me enjoying the view.

There wasn't the slightest chance I could have changed lenses without spooking the critter so I chose instead to savor the moment.

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NorthernFocus said:

Here's another moose encounter. This goofy young bull trotted all the way across the valley to come check me out. Then it just trotted back from whence it came. You can see in every frame below he is definitely looking straight at me the entire time. I was standing upright and out in the open. I figure it was near sighted and from afar I looked like a lady moose ?

Nikon D4/AF-S 80-400mm

1) When I first saw this guy he emerged from the hemlock thicket seen at top of frame probably 300-400 yards away. He was coming toward me at a steady trot.

2) Still coming. At this point I hoped he would stop and not cross to my side of the creek.

3) Well now he's on my side of the creek and still coming. Beginning to get a little concerned now as I'm standing in a wide open area with no cover. And I'm pretty sure he can run faster than me. My only option is a big rock nearby that I could scramble on top of if necessary. Or pepper spray as a last resort.

4) Now I'm talking to him. Rather loudly. "Hey ,big boy, I'm not a moose." And judging whether I can make it onto the rock.

5) Finally he changes course and walks a circle all the way around me maybe 25-30 yards away. Then just trots back across to where he started. In this pick I zoomed out to capture more of the landscape.

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Ralph Bruno said:

Back in 1980 while I was working for the National Marine Fisheries Service as a sea- going technician on NOAA research vessels we had a whale sighting of a Right Whale and its calf. Probably within 100 yards. I took a few shots but as anyone knows , pictures of whales are not usually dramatic looking unless they are leaping or extremely close. But the fact that there are only about 500 left in the world made it very exciting. Unfortunately, I could only get a picture of only one on the surface at any given time while the other was submerged. You can see the wake of the one below the surface. I’m pretty sure the location was Stellwagen Banks off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Ektachrome slides.

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This is the only whale that has a V-Shaped spot because it has two blow holes

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NorthernFocus said:

IMO it's always exciting to see new species. Even if all they're doing is swimming and breathing

As I recall the Right Whale got its name from whalers back in the day because they were literally the right whales to go after. They yielded a lot of oil and were less prone to smash boats etc when harpooned. And unfortunately(for the whales) the vee shaped spout made them easy to identify and target.

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IainD said:

I travelled to Lake Clark in Alaska to photograph grizzly bears. This female with two cubs saw us in the distance and decided to investigate. We had thick forest behind us, and no place to hide. She came right up to me, walked past and stopped nose to nose with our bear guide, while the cub in this image sat at my feet. There were six of us in the party. We just stood and waited until she went away. View attachment 17018

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IainD said:

I travelled to Lake Clark in Alaska to photograph grizzly bears. This female with two cubs saw us in the distance and decided to investigate. We had thick forest behind us, and no place to hide. She came right up to me, walked past and stopped nose to nose with our bear guide, while the cub in this image sat at my feet. There were six of us in the party. We just stood and waited until she went away. View attachment 17018

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