Backyard and Beyond

Patience and persistence paid off recently for both a beautiful red-tailed hawk and photographer Bret Cool: Cool got a standout photo and the hawk got its prey. “I watched the hawk move from perch to

Take a holiday decoration purchased at a big box store, add a rope hanger and, voila! you have a great setting to photograph winter’s birds as they fly in to feed. Rich Carlson snapped a

Trumpeter swans are such handsome, regal birds that it’s sometimes hard to remember that they’re dabbling waterfowl that tip upside down to find a meal in the same manner in which mallards and other waterfowl

A young American kestrel perches on top of a post in Carl Richard’s photo.
This youngster recently fledged from a nest box in a large park near Richard’s home, and even though we don’t

Adam Carlson caught a fine photo of October’s comet, the Tsuchinshan-Atlas, named for the Chinese and South African observatories that first spotted it. This space rock from the outer reaches of our solar system passed

Luck, skill, and patience: These are the Big 3 in an outdoor photographer’s tool kit. Kip Earney called on all three as he hunkered down in the bulrushes along a Mississippi River backwater some months

Bob Sheetz photographed a hummingbird looking over its shoulder as it started a takeoff, hinting at the long journey ahead.
At this time of year, most of our ruby-throated hummingbirds are on their way

Imagine having a ring-side seat for watching a river otter family this summer. Don Dinndorf and family were lucky enough to observe three young otters hunting crayfish, snails, and fish under their boat launch and