My Top Ten (Plus Two) of 2023

Here are my “Top Ten (Plus Two)” photographs of 2023, according to my completely arbitrary evaluation system. Wait, why not just say Top Twelve since there are indeed twelve photos? Well Top Twelve just doesn’t have the same gravitas to it as Top Ten, right? So then why twelve photos instead of ten? Because I decided to pick one per month, so it’s technically not even my “Top Twelve”. But that’s OK, I really love each one of these photographs. I can’t pick a favorite (it would be akin to picking a favorite child, never a good idea unless you only have one or none) but I sure don’t mind getting your feedback of your favorite(s) in the comments below.

January – This Great Blue Heron was standing in an unfrozen patch of a pond when he speared a fish that seemed too big to swallow. It wasn’t.

Great Blue Heron eats a fish in a pond

February – We had an irruption of the rare (for here) Bohemian Waxwings in Colorado last winter. I titled this image “Last Call”. It so reminds me of my friends and me in college furiously drinking our last beers of the night at a bar after “last call” gets announced. Also, the light was gone about two minutes later. You can read my previous blog post about the irruption here.

A group of Bohemian Waxwings getting in one last drink of water

 March – I love watching and photographing sandhill cranes. These three in the Monte Vista (Colorado) Wildlife Refuge kept eating off the ground (where are their manners?) and I kept hoping they’d cross heads. Obviously, they did.

Three Sandhill Cranes cross heads while eating

 April – Let me just say what’s going through your mind. This is not a good photograph – branches in the way, obscured subjects, poor light, etc. So why did I include this one if it’s so bad? Because this shows a rarity in the bird world. There are two adult great Horned Owls in this nest. Both are females and both are “co-mothering”. It’s quite certain these are both female because the Dad was seen nearby (as the male partners do) and male owls will drop food off at a nest but never sit in it. If you look closely, you can see a baby in the nest. To see a related blog post, click here.

Two Great Horned Owls and baby owl in the nest

 May – A nearby small pond hosted a single goose couple that laid eggs off the shore. This gosling was the only egg to hatch from that clutch. Ironically, I took this photograph of the baby and her Mom the day before Mother’s Day.

Newborn gosling with Mother in the grass

 June – Owls are beautiful and mysterious creatures. They’re hard to see during the day with their natural camouflage and hard to see at night because – well, everything is hard to see at night. Fortunately, we spotted this beautiful Great Horned Owl beauty, who had been born just a few months earlier, quietly watching us.

Young Great Horned Owl begins to fledge by perching on a stump

 July – I could watch barn swallows feed their young for hours. And I have. Many times. There is a brief period of time when newborn barn swallows leave the nest but still hang around near their nest and wait for their parents to bring them food (insects they catch off the top of a body of water). Their excitement at seeing an incoming meal is palpable and makes for a great photography subject. To see more of these photos click here.

Baby Barn Swallows anxiously await food from their parent

 August – Snowy Egrets may be my favorite bird of all time to photograph. Not only are they beautiful in their own right, but their size and white color makes them relatively easy for the camera to focus on and capture. I photographed this particular one all summer and one day, as the light was just about to fade for the day, he decided to fly across the river and give me a show to photograph. I obliged.

Snowy Egret lands on a rock by the river

 September – This is Nat the Black-Crowned Night Heron. Nat would sit for hours by the Platte River and seemingly contemplate the meaning of life. With the sun fading fast, I opened up my shutter speed and got a rushing river as a “silky” texture, all while Nat never moved a muscle. He left at the end of the month and hopefully by then full of understanding the complexities of life. To read more about Nat and see him more active, click here.

Black-Crowned Night Heron sits contemplatively at a river’s edge

 October – October is Wood Duck month here. They blow in for a few weeks and then blow right back out. I got really good shots this year of them swimming, preening, eating and flying. When I took this shot of a male Wood Duck flying across the lake for the night, little did I know it would be the last Wood Duck I’d see this year. To see my previous post about wood ducks click here.

Wood Duck and its reflection fly across a lake

 November – November was a fun month to photograph birds and it was really hard to pick just one. But a trip to Caddo Lake in Texas yielded this shot of a Great Egret flying across some cypress trees in the first light of the morning. I felt like I was in an enchanted forest.

Great Egret stands in front of cypress trees at Caddo Lake, Texas

 December – I can’t let the year go by without a bald eagle shot. And luckily, I just got this one of a bald eagle preening itself. I’ve never seen it spread its white tail feathers so wide giving a rare view of these beautiful white feathers.

Bald Eagle spreads its white tail feathers to preen itself