Who is "Dozer"?

Who or what is Dozer you may ask? If you had asked me that question a week ago, I would have had no clue, but today I can confidently say, I do!

While teaching one of my Introduction to Bird Photography masterclasses at the recent Morro Bay Bird Festival, one of the participants pointed out a long-billed curlew on Morro Strand with banding on its legs. I quickly took a few photos and suggested others do as well with the possibility of finding out more as far as where the bird came from, as well as potentially contributing to citizen science by assisting those that would have originally banded the bird.

When I got back home to Monterey, I started going through the photos I had taken with one in particular standing out. It clearly showed a band on each of the bird's legs, but also a small transmitter pointing up from its back. So this bird was also fitted with a tracking device of some sort! How cool is that!

Well now I really had to find out the story and decided to contact the Morro Coast Audubon Society to see if they knew anything or anyone that could help with finding out more. I sent two photos including the one with the visible transmitter.

I quickly received a phone call from Marcella Munson, VP of the society who was excited and thrilled that Dozer had been spotted, since he has become a bit of a legend in Morro Bay.

Dozer was banded and fitted with a satellite transmitter in May 2020 by the Intermountain Bird Observatory at his breeding grounds in Indian Valley in the West Central Mountains of Idaho, as part of a study called the "Curlew Project". 

Long-billed curlews, like many other species are in decline due to habitat loss in their nesting grounds. Breeding populations throughout southwestern Idaho have sustained dramatic losses with declines reaching roughly 98% over the course of 40 short years. 

This drastic decline prompted researchers at Boise State University’s Intermountain Bird Observatory (IBO) to track these birds with the help of satellite transmitters. This important research has not only helped piece together their migratory connectivity or “pathways”, but has also uncovered that breeding curlews on the public lands throughout southwest Idaho have been heavily impacted by illegal shooting. Curlew conservation education has become the mission of Heather Hayes, the IBO’s Community Science Coordinator and research biologist for the “Curlew Crew.”

Here is an in-depth story about Dozer from the university, as well as fascinating satellite transmitter maps showing his amazing journey!

When you see long-billed curlews along our beaches here in California, these beautiful, fascinating birds have travelled hundreds of miles to feed and build strength before for their long journey back in the spring to their breeding grounds. 

Many other shorebirds overwinter here for the same reason, therefore, please adhere to signage regarding off-leash dogs, because every time they are forced to fly, they are using up much needed reserves, which will ultimately impact their breeding success. 

I am so happy knowing Dozer is doing well and that through my photography, "as we all can do", contribute to conservation. 

Long-billed Curlew wins 2025 California Watchable Wildlife Photo Competition!

I was thrilled to learn my image of a long-billed curlew about to swallow a sand crab won the 2025 California Watchable Wildlife Photo Contest.

Captured on Morro Strand in 2024 while attending the annual Morro Bay Bird Festival, I submitted the image to the contest  in January 2025 and at that time was selected as one of the top three photos submitted for the January/February period.

Submissions throughout the year are broken down into six, two month periods with the three top photos announced every two months. These 18 photos at the end of the year are then judged with a final three overall winners announced in January of the following year. 

The three winning categories are "California Wildlife Photo of the Year", "Sierra Nevada Conservancy Winner" and in my case, "California Watchable Wildlife Winner". 

I will be honored locally by my council member Jean Rasch in Monterey at the next meeting in February. 

Farewell Jane

Yesterday on October 1st, 2025 the world learned of the passing of Jane Goodall. It came as a surprise as I had seen her back in April at an event in Carmel, California, where I had the privilege of photographing her onstage with Charles Knowles from the Wildlife Conservation Network.  

Turning the clock back ten years, Jane was the honored guest at the Wildlife Conservation Network's annual Expo in San Francisco. It was at this event I was a volunteer and got to see Jane for the very first time in my life. I could not believe it and joined the long queue with hundreds of others to have my photo taken with her. What I will remember from that is how she smiled throughout, forever gracious and interested in what people had to say. 

Her message of hope for the planet was relentless and even at 91, she was traveling 300 days of the year around the world. It was here in California she bid us all goodbye in her sleep. Farewell Jane and thank you for inspiring me to make a difference.

A Hummingbird in Manhattan!

I never would have dreamed of seeing my work in mid-town Manhattan, but it is currently being displayed by the National Audubon Society as part of their campaign to promote bird conservation during Climate Week. 

How on earth did that happen? A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Audubon's director of photography with a request to use my photo of an Allen's Hummingbird for a large digital poster to be displayed in several bus shelters for a two week period beginning the week of September 24th.

The photo was taken at the UCSC Arboretum and I captured several images as this colorful male kept leaving to feed and return to his perch. This allowed me to prepare by pre-focusing in the exact spot where he would land and also use a remote trigger so I could stand back and watch his approach. Out of all the images captured, this particular one stood out for me as I loved the dead center, head on pose with wings spread. 

I had submitted the photo a few years back for their annual bird photography competition along with thousands of others every year, so it was an absolute surprise that they somehow dug this up and selected it as the photo they wanted to use. What an absolute thrill and an honor to think my little hummingbird is doing his part for birds and conservation. 

Sea Otters and Jane Goodall's Message of Hope

I recently had the honor of being asked to photograph Jane Goodall at the Sunset Center in Carmel, California. Jane was the special guest at an event hosted by the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) to announce their new Sea Otter Fund. 

The goal of the fund is to restore sea otters along their historical U.S. Pacific Coast range. Once abundant from Baja California across the north Pacific Rim to Japan, sea otters were nearly hunted to extinction for their fur. As a keystone species, sea otters provide multiple benefits to nearshore ecosystems, including helping maintain the health of kelp and seagrass systems, promoting biodiversity, and improving resilience to the effects of climate change.

The first half of the event centered on Jane and her life's work through a conversation with Charlie Knowles, founder of WCN. We heard about her childhood growing up in the UK, followed by her initial visit to South African and ultimately to Kenya where she would begin her lifelong and groundbreaking relationship with chimpanzees.

The second half involved a talk by a panel of experts in sea otters including Julie Packard from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  We learned about the need to protect this beautiful, endearing species and how crucial they are to the future health of our coastal ecosystems.

At 91 years of age, Jane is still going strong, traveling over 300 days of the year around the globe in order to share her message of hope for the planet. So incredibly moving and a such magical and memorable evening I will never forget. 

Traveling in Style with Abercrombie & Kent

Something new and different for me this year was joining Abercrombie & Kent as a photo coach on their luxury small ship cruises. Rather than photographing wildlife in remote locations, I was challenged with cities, people and architecture in Italy, Croatia, Montenegro and Greece.

Funnily enough, many of the same principles apply such as lighting, composition, backgrounds and foregrounds, as well as capturing behavior. Just like birds and wildlife, watching and waiting for a particular moment was an interesting exercise. 

On one occasion on a very hot day in Syracuse, Sicily, I stood in the large square and noticed a couple of kittens lying around in the shade. My plan was to photograph them when unexpectedly a father carrying a toddler put her down and she made a beeline for one of the kittens. For a very brief moment, the kitten looked right into the child's eyes before the father scooped her back up into his arms. It was something I quickly managed to capture and a lesson in being both observant and prepared. Photographing unknown children is not something I would normally attempt to do, certainly not without permission, but I felt this was okay as the child's face is not seen. We do not know who this little girl is and I like that. I also think whomever the parent of the child is would probably love to have the photo, but we will never know. It is a sweet encounter frozen in time and one of my favorite images from the entire trip.

Walking through busy streets full of late summertime tourists, I also tried to seek out things that might not necessarily make it quite so obvious as to where we were or filled with throngs of people, but caught my eye for one reason or another. It could be an architectural detail or in Venice for example, where I noticed this pair of beautiful brass sea horses that adorned a gondola. I lowered my point of view and took a side on shot with my 70-200mm lens, set against the dark background. I think it worked out well.

When it did come to photographing street scenes, I looked for areas less trafficked such as alleyways, as was the case in this next photo in Naples. I noticed the gentleman heading towards me carrying a large box on his shoulder and was drawn to the grunginess and textures in the scene, along with the pop of color in the blue flags and red pipes. I used my 70-200mm lens from a distance with the gentleman going about his business completely unaware. To me it conveys just how Naples felt, not pristine clean and perfect, but a city full of character and well lived in. I loved it!

Again in Naples I made use of the 70-200mm telephoto and how it compresses a scene, particularly as we walked along the famous "Christmas Alley" and beyond, jammed with visitors. I focused mid scene into the distance and was able to convey the density of people along this narrow street. 

Traveling with a camera in hand offers so many creative options. Being more observant and thinking outside the box can lead you to interesting scenes and images such as these. More to follow in my next posting!

Contributing to conservation through Photography

A few years back I met an amazing individual as a volunteer with the Wildlife Conservation Network. His name is Pablo Garcia and he had created an organization in 2009 called "The Global Penguin Society" with the goal of protecting penguin species around the globe. I found him to be a passionate advocate for a bird I have personally fallen in love with from my many travels to South America and Antarctica. Is is hard not to be totally enamored by these beautiful, charismatic creatures of the Southern Hemisphere. 

Pablo's story and the efforts he has made is really quite amazing including the creation of Patagonia Azul, or Blue Patagonia, a UNESCO biosphere reserve in Argentina which I hope to visit AND photograph one day!  In the meantime, Pablo has used my images in his presentations and also in scientific publications of which I am incredibly proud of. 

Pablo recently became the recipient of the "Indianapolis Prize for Conservation". The Indianapolis Zoological Society selected him, the first winner from South America, from a pool of 51 nominees and six finalists. He will receive an unrestricted $250,000 grant for his efforts to protect penguins and their habitat. Here is the article and a short video clip where several of my penguin images were featured. 

NANPA 2023 Top 100 Showcase Selection!

It has been a couple of years since I submitted any of my work to the North American Nature Photography Association's Annual Showcase and after visiting Antarctica in late 2021/2022 felt I had a few images worthy of submission. I was very happy to recently learn that one of these made the top 100 of all the final images selected. This is from thousands of entries! 

It is an image I captured while in the Beagle Channel returning from Antarctica en route to the port of Ushuaia, Argentina. We had phenomenal weather and the waters of the channel were like glass when a small pod of Peale's Dolphins made an appearance alongside the ship. I quickly made my way down to the lowest level so I could potentially capture some close up shots. This required paying very close attention to their movements and awaiting those moments when they briefly broke the surface of the water. 

Using my trusty Nikon D500 with the fabulous lightweight Nikon 300mm f/4 PF lens, I fired off short bursts of several images over a period of about 15 minutes or so, before they decided they had had enough fun and vanished below the depths. I was so very happy to have captured this particular image with both the reflection and the eye! 

1/2500s, f/7.1 @ ISO 1000

As more and more photographers submit their images and the standard each year seems to be getting higher and higher, having any image selected is a personal achievement. It reaffirms and makes the time, work and effort involved in being a professional wildlife photographer all the more worthwhile.

My advice for getting your images selected and published are to not only submit your best images, but of subjects not typically seen, unusual behavioral or compositional shots and of course, technically sound.  

The beautiful NANPA Expressions publication will be available with all the winning images in 2023 and I will post more information on that when all the winners are announced. 

Return to the White Continent!

After two long years of no overseas work, in December, 2021 I was thrilled to finally make a return visit to the bottom of the world on a seven week assignment with Albatros Expeditions. This was my first contract with the renowned tour operator who are based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Albatros Travel Group has been around for a very long time, but their polar expedition side is relatively new. 

I was both excited and intrigued to work for a new company on one of their new Polar vessels, Ocean Victory. The vessel is part of a brand new generation of low-energy vessels, with 4 diesel engines and 2 electro engines, all controlled electronically to optimize speed and fuel consumption.

Over the course of seven weeks, I crossed the notorious Drake Passage seven times! We visited the South Shetland Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula and even crossed the Antarctic Circle. Fate led us into the Weddell Sea to avoid bad weather where I saw my very first emperor penguins! We also visited the beautiful Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island, which also happens to be one of my favorite places on the planet. 

Travel to these wild and remote places is an experience like no other and for many, a once in a lifetime trip. Here are some of my favorite photographic moments.

Juvenile Emperor Penguins

Juvenile Fur Seal

Charlotte Bay, Antarctica

Peale's Dolphins

Light-Mantled Albatross

Talk at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History

I am thrilled to have been invited to do a talk on September 23rd at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History in Pacific Grove, California as part of their Hardcore Natural History Speaker Series. 

The idea came about in a conversation with the museum's director of education and outreach, Liese Murphree relating to their wonderful new "Changes" Exhibit. The year-long speaker series is focused on changes in Monterey County habitats over time, the impact of humans in these landscapes, and the role of humans in protecting them for the future. 

Photography plays an important role in conservation and I look forward to discussing how it has shaped my own personal journey both as a photographer and resident of this incredibly beautiful part of the world.  I hope you can join me!  

Learn more and REGISTER HERE