November: Denver

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This 2024 Year in Review is dragging on a bit, but not for lack of images to share! Picking a place to feature for November was easy. Picking just a few images to share is hard! Because.. snow! I was in Denver to attend the opening reception of an art exhibit for new satellite members at D’Art Gallery, a co-op in the Denver arts district I have joined. In fact, the voluminous snow resulted in the opening reception being canceled. But what fun it was to tramp around and photograph snow for a change! I did get to see the…

October: Black Bayou Lake NWR

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“You’re a noticer,” said my friend Cherry Whipple when I posted some of these photos from a nature walk out at Black Bayou Lake NWR on Facebook. Thank you, Cherry. Yes, I strive to be. The occasion was Friends of Black Bayou’s annual Fall Celebration. I’m always there with my Care of Creation table right next to the Louisiana Master Naturalists–Northeast table ready to talk to folks about how to learn about the natural world and take better care of it. But the first event of the day is a nature walk for the early birds. I followed a group…

September: Tensas River NWR

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You never know what you’re going to see. But in or near the Tensas River NWR, your chances of seeing a Louisiana Black Bear (Ursus americanus luteolus) are better than anywhere else in the state! I have now encountered a bear on three occasions, the last one being in September 2024. After completing a Sunday morning assignment in St. Joseph, La., I entered the refuge from the south and drove slowly north, looking for wildlife and stopping often to photograph birds, butterflies, dragonflies, wildflowers and the ubiquitous raccoons. Tensas rarely disappoints the avid wildlife watcher and photographer. By the time…

August: Cat Island

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Cat Island is a National Wildlife Refuge near St. Francisville in south central Louisiana. It’s a wonderfully primitive refuge. It has one road with a turn-around at the end of it somewhere in the middle of the refuge. You drive in, you drive out; you do not drive through. The road to the entrance of the refuge runs along a bayou and is interesting in its own right for wildlife observation. But the dominant feature is “the big tree,” a Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) estimated to be 1500 years old. It is 96 feet tall, has a diameter of 17…

July: Vernon Parish

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I love birds. If you’re following this blog, you know that I love to photograph and count birds. But birds are not my sole winged passion. As soon as spring is in sight, I’ll be bugging my friend Craig Marks, who has written THE book on butterflies in Louisiana, to publish the upcoming summer’s butterfly count schedule. I’ll be on as many of those counts as I can manage, time wise. Thus it was that last July, I participated in the annual butterfly count in Vernon Parish. That count begins at Allen Acres, a B&B run by my friend Dr….