"Bed time down under," San Diego Zoo April 2006

This guy will sleep anywhere

When you're a koala, bed time can come anywhere, anytime.

Day 311 of 365

8th Ave. on a Saturday

This hefty bulldog was awaiting his owner outside a takeout restaurant.

Day 289 of 365

One Poochini, please

I love going to Shake Shack on cool days -- short line, but the burger's just as good. This guy knows what I'm talking about.

Day 194 of 365

Not as lonely as it appears

I felt sorry for the big guy, until I passed him and noticed that his leash is tied to his owner's chair at the restaurant. He's just looking for sympathy.

Day 144 of 365

Penny watches the bocce action

Despite the nature of the game -- balls being tossed around the lawn -- Penny had little interest in our bocce game on the Cape. Kathy and Casey had a lot of interest in Penny -- and their cocktails. Summer's great.

"Yellowstone isolation," May 2006

Bryan and the bison

There is little that can heighten the feeling of isolation more than finding yourself staring out on the open vistas in the West, whether it's the rolling green hills of Yellowstone or the golden desert of Arizona -- or any expansive vista in between.

Day 38 of 365

Earflop

Clark enjoys a romp in my friend's yard on a pleasant 50-degree afternoon in central New Jersey.

"Elephant's memory," California, April 2006

All of you keepers
and wanna be sleepers
Wake up there's a message so
clear
I saw the elephant and I looked him in the eye

-- "Elephant's Memory," Martin Sexton

Day 8 of 365

Sun through the trees

With no particular idea in my head as to what I'd photograph today, I headed home from some afternoon errands and found the road took me up to Garret Mountain, a county park here in Passaic County not far from our house.

I love heading up there in the late afternoon as the sun sets. The view from the lookout at the top faces east, so you see I-80 and Paterson below you, northeastern New Jersey and New York City off in the distance. All is bathed in the soft, orange light of dusk.

I drive up to the "mountain" often. During the warmer months, I'll run the loop road -- a perfect two miles -- and I've found my way up there at this late time of day a couple of times since we moved to the area. The late-afternoon dusk is prime feeding time for the deer up there, and they tend to like this one particular clearing that motorists pass shortly after entering the park and following the one-way loop road. I knew they'd be there, but I didn't bother looking for them and first noticed the cars pulled over at the side of the road. There were a lot of them, and three or four cars sat there for a while watching them before moving on to the slow, quiet ends to our own afternoons.

Day 4 of 365

If Harry flew like Superman

So it took just four days before I resorted to a picture of one of the cats for the day's image. That's what happens when I spend the day 1.) Reading the Sunday Times, 2.) Hitting Stop & Shop, Target and Whole Foods with the wife, and 3.) Taking down Christmas lights. I found little interest in taking any photos at the stores, but had I realized while filling up that the $1.39 per gallon I paid at Lukoil was the lowest since July 2003 (yes, I keep track), I would've documented that.

"Double portrait," October 2007

Double portrait

Even after I'd moved out of my parents house, whenever I returned, I tended to look into the windows of the room closest to the driveway as I walked across the patio to the kitchen door. I was looking to see if the cat, Oreo, was surveying the landscape. If I was stopping by when no one else was home, I'd search him out as soon as I got inside. Even after he was gone, for months I still found myself looking in the windows on my way to the door or waiting for him to come trotting up when I was inside. It took quite some time to shake that feeling of his presence in the house.

Now, finally, my wife and I have reason again to sense another presence around the house, even if one of us isn't home at the time. Lenny and Harry have made themselves at home, and though we lived there for four months -- and together for five years -- without the two cats, I've found that after just two months with them that I can't imagine the house (and life) without them now.

Lenny, five months old when we got him, is an affectionate, playful tiny ball of terror. He'll be fast asleep at any hour of the day or night -- and I often come home in the wee small hours -- yet as soon as he hears a door, he's up and investigating in little more than a minute. And you can't sit on the couch for too long before he's in your lap.

Harry, at three years old a wise and more stoic cat, certainly marches to his own beat, but he'll put his 14 pounds of heft onto your lap when the mood strikes him. He'll also throw his weight around to open most doors in the house that aren't latched or otherwise securely closed. And should Lenny start antagonizing him and wrestling, Harry simply pins the little guy to show him who's boss.

"Bone crusher, San Diego Zoo," April 2006

Eurasian bearded vulture, originally uploaded by DC Products.

I was thinking of talons or teeth for something sharp, and then I came across this big guy. I wouldn't want to face that beak without a cage between us. I'm shuddering a little just looking at it.

"Trenton's four-legged batboy," New Jersey, August 2006

"Trenton's four-legged batboy," New Jersey, August 2006

Whenever I go see the minor-league Trenton Thunder, I can't help myself -- no matter how many similar pictures I have of Chase, That Golden Thunder, retrieving one of the player's bats in the first inning, I have to take more.

The dog is owned by the team and lives with one of the front-office employees. A handler sits with him next to the Thunder dugout during the bottom of the first, sending him out to the plate to retreive the wood after an at-bat. Each time, Chase sniffs and rolls the bat, often needing two or three attempts before finding both a balance between the weight of the heavier barrel and lighter handle and a section with not too much pine tar. Overall, the process, in the end, probably takes longer for the four-legged batboy than it does the two-legged one who handles the rest of the game, but the fans get a kick out of it.

After the first inning, Chase disappears until the sixth, when he emerges with his handler to run down frisbees in right field. It's tied to a promotion, where a fan earns money for each catch -- either $5 per snag, or increasing $5 increments for each one.

"Plumpy parrot," New Jersey, January 2006

"Plumpy parrot," New Jersey, January 2006
I've previously posted a shot of these guys and intended to go back for more, but I haven't made it up the street with my camera lately. I should, because when the light is right, they come out so beautifully. I have a handful of other shots from this day, and even though it's a good shot of the bird, they tend to be in shadow and not as brilliantly colored as a result. 

"American bison, Yellowstone," May 2006

"American bison, Yellowstone," May 2006

It may have been May, but in the high elevations of northwestern Wyoming -- in Yellowstone National Park -- you can get winter weather late into the year. The day began cool and overcast, and it wouldn't have been a bad one to tour the park, but when we found ourselves getting out of the car in the rain to see a thermal spring, or when I had to tuck my camera under my coat to keep the snow off it when looking at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the river's Lower Falls, it got to be a little much.

At this point, we were on our way out of the park, completing the loop we had started and about to hit the road south that would take us back to Jackson Hole. We noticed ahead a car coming in the opposite direction that had stopped; the vehicle in front of us braked and I noticed, through the falling snow, a bison crossing the road. As we approached the spot, we saw that the one that had crossed was following another; back on the right side of the pavement, where the first two had come from, three others remained.

Conveniently, the two bison had crossed at a turnout, so I turned into it and we waited. The second one to cross stopped barely 50 feet from the road -- where a half-dozen cars were now scattered, watching. As the huge animal turned and walked back to the edge of where the macadam met the grass, one woman got out of her car to get a photo, and Bryan and I laughed at the idiocy of this arrogant tourist. She returned to her car without incident, and we watched as the three lagging bison made their way, one by one, across to join the first two. This shot is of two of those final three, plus the one who crossed and waited, setting off into the valley.

A parrot in Edgewater, January 2006

There are a flock of Quaker parrots that build what amount to nest condos in trees and, unfortunately, on power lines and connectors to utility poles in Edgewater, New Jersey. They're true Jersey dwellers now -- they don't flee in the winter. Even now, if you come down the cliff from Cliffside Park on Route 5, after the hairpin turn, if you find yourself far enough back at a red light, all you have to do is turn off the radio to hear the squawking from above. The cacophony of dozens of birds is loud enough to be heard through closed windows. It's beautiful.

Perched, January 2006

There are advantages to sitting next to the only window in the office, particularly when it's a wide panoramic series of panes that stretch from one wall to the other. I've seen this hawk before, but on this day -- the first day I had my new digital SLR up and running -- I was ready. And he was accomodating, swooping down from over the roof, right past the window near where I sit, and gliding to his perch on a branch not much more than 100 feet across the parking lot. That was nice of him.

A full-sized version can be found here.