To bring this photographic retrospective to a close, we come to images I took of the landscapes in which I found birds, plants, mammals, and other critters. These include lots of mountains and forest trails, but the most dramatic ones might be views from Second Beach at Quillayute Needles National Wildlife Refuge. The beach is shadowed by rocky prominences that loom dramatically out of the tidal spray, some big enough to host patches of coastal forest.
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As a final taxonomic catch-all for my 2023 nature photography, let’s go with … invertebrates? If I’m not taking a photo of a plant, a bird, or a mammal, it’s most likely an insect visiting a flower. I do love a good plant-pollinator interaction. And while larger animals are a challenge to manage well with my 150mm lens, I can frequently catch some nice close images of butterflies nectaring, like the blue above, or the Clodius parnassian below.
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My last year of photography had broader taxonomic scope than birds and flowering plants, of course. I got some good images of mammals across the range of habitats I hiked and toured. Top billing has to go to the miniature foxes of Santa Cruz Island, above, which have fully taken over the campground where we spent two nights, napping yards away from occupied campsites and always on the lookout for unguarded snacks. It was like camping in a cat cafe, if the cats were a protected species.
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Following on from my post of 2023 bird photography highlights, here’s some of my favorite flowering plant images I captured in 2023. Flowers are, of course, easier photography subjects, but I’m still learning how to balance lighting and depth of field to really capture details with the most aesthetic interest and botanic value.
Above, the example with the greatest professional value: Joshua trees in flower this spring, after record-breaking winter rainfall across a lot of the Mojave Desert.
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It’s been more than a year since I decided to return to photography beyond what I can do with the (deceptively good) camera built into a smartphone. In 2023, I took quite a lot of photos with my entry-level mirrorless Olympus digital, almost all with a 150mm lens that achieves good enough optical zoom to go beyond anything I’ve done with any camera I’ve owned. So this was my first full year carrying a camera that can in principle capture images of wildlife — though not yet the strongest skill set using it. Or, indeed, as much lens as I really ought to have for images of anything that can run or fly away from an aspiring paparazzo. Nevertheless, I’m pretty happy with some of the images I got, including enough birds to merit a personal retrospective, in this post. Many more are on Flickr, tagged appropriately.
Up top: one of the white-crowned sparrows I saw on the dunes at Asilomar, in between sessions at the first in-person meeting of the American Society of Naturalists I’ve attended since 2020.
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