Travels with Ted: A Day On The Water … The Simple Things

I enjoy fine dining and excellent cuisine and throughout the rest of this issue you will find incredible restaurants and dishes that make us want to partake of all the glorious foods and visit the establishments that serve them. In addition to what is offered to me, I get great joy from my days on the lake observing and documenting life of the creatures we share this planet with. This is most satisfying to me: The animals and birds I photograph do not have supermarkets they can visit. Every day it is up to them to hunt for and obtain their own meals. No preparation is necessary. It is simply find, capture and eat.

Photo 1

Lake Pleasant days start early as wildlife begins its days early in the eternal search for food. Departure is well before dawn as it takes about two hours to make the drive and launch the boat. For the next five hours, I hunt the shores of the northern part of the lake for wildlife, never knowing what I will find and always hoping for amazing shots. Wildlife prefer the shallow waters found on the north end of the lake as the waters are easy to navigate and fish are in shallow water making it easy for predators to see and capture them. They start very early in the morning. Cruising in my boat, “Knot Yacht,” we cover about 30 miles of shore during a five-hour outing. If all goes well, we may have a half hour of excellent shooting. On rare occasions, a creature will spend 10 minutes or more very close to us giving us opportunities of a lifetime to capture the beauty. Here’s more about the photos: Photo 1 is a Great Blue Heron downing a rainbow trout.

Photo 2

Photo 2 is a Bald Eagle heading off with a North American Coot firmly held in his talons.

Photo 3

The photo featured at the top of this page is a Red Tail Hawk family. The adult has just brought a lizard up, and the nesting red tail hawk on the right is consuming it. Photo 3 shows a Great Egret flipping his catch so that he can swallow it head first.