The Wildlife Photography Apprentice
A Wildlife Photography Blog with information about wildlife photoraphy techniques, locations and subjects based out of West Texas.
If you have ever been to West Texas then you know there really isn’t much to look at. You can literally drive a hundred miles and not change elevation more than 10 feet. For the most part, it’s dry and arid. The average yearly rainfall is about 14 inches and not a lot can grow in those conditions. Every once in a while though you’re lucky and you find an oasis in the desert.
While certain breeds of dogs occasionally climb trees it is certainly an unusual behaviour for most. Dogs primarily prey on animals that live on the ground and therefore have not evolutionarily developed the skills and anatomy to climb trees well. Cats have strong backs and hind legs with sharp retractable claws which are well suited for tree climbing. Dogs have weak backs and dull claws. The exception to the rule in the dog family is the Gray Fox.
Continue reading “Wildlife photography: Dogs don’t climb trees, do they?”
It doesn’t often snow in West Texas, but strange things happen, and if you live long enough you’ll see some of them. In the winter of 2017, we had an unusual visitor, a Snowy Owl in West Texas. In early December I was out with another photographer at our local wildlife preserve taking photos of birds when he told me his daughter had seen a large white owl in the parking lot of their church the day before. I told him it was most likely a barn owl as they are native to the area and can be white or very light in color. When he pulled out his phone and showed me a video she had taken I could hardly believe what I was seeing. To my disbelief, the video showed a large Snowy Owl.
