July 31, 2012
White-Tailed Ptarmigan in the San Juan National Forest, Colorado

This is an image from two weeks ago. After I finished photographing near sunrise in the San Juan National Forest, I went exploring and came across this White-Tailed Ptarmigan. I'm pretty sure it's a male because one had been flying around and making a racket earlier. I was excited to have the opportunity to photograph it, but unfortunately the longest lens I had with me was a 180 Macro because I had left the 70-200 in the car to lighten my pack. By working slowly, I was able to move in close enough to make some nice images with the rather short lens. I particularly like this image because it gives a sense of the mountainous environment.