Ahhh, birds.

For a long time I considered myself anti-bird. The only birds I enjoyed watching or photographing were ones that were flightless (penguins) or of immense size (ostriches).

Gradually my bird hatred has faded away. I blame those old feelings on the fact that amazingly bright coloured birds are rare at home in Canada. But the more I travelled, the more interesting birds I saw. Toucans, hornbills, flycatchers and all sorts of birds of prey – all different than what I was used to at home. As my interest and knowledge of photography has grown, so has my interest in birds, which often make for challenging photography subjects.

This one here is a simple purple swamphen in Sri Lanka. There were a few of these hanging out, and fighting, in a field on my way to the ancient fortress of Yapahuwa. I liked the contrast of the bright green background with the blue, purple and red colouring of the swamphen.

This is the first Grizzly Bear I encountered in the wild. It was a good-sized bear that was meandering through some meadows in Grand Teton National Park. If you look behind its front legs, you can see a lighter colour patch of fur associated with Grizzlies. You can also see a bit of the humped back Grizzlies have, one great way to tell apart Grizzlies and Black Bears from a distance.

I was on the wrong side of this bear to get any perfect pictures as I had to photograph it facing into the sun, but still managed to get some decent shots. Spotting this Grizzly is still one of the highlights from all of my travels to Montana and Wyoming.

The Grizzly Bear is sometimes called the North American Brown Bear and is one of many subspecies of Brown Bears around the world. At the top of my list for future bear adventures is to head to Alaska to see the largest of all brown bear subspecies – the Kodiak.

Surprising to many travellers is the fact that New Zealand is home to more penguin species than any other country in the world!

Most species are found in the hard to get to New Zealand Sub-Antarctic islands, however the Otago Peninsula on the South Island of New Zealand is home to a couple of species – the Blue Penguin and the Yellow-eyed Penguin.

Organized wildlife tours are popular from Dunedin, available during certain times of the year. There are also a number of public hides to visit and see them on your own. The Yellow-eyed Penguin is one of the rarest in the world and is listed as an endangered species with around 4000 left in the wild.

This photo was taken on some private land, near sunset, which made it tricky getting a crisp, clear image. The owners of the land often have to kill feral cats in the area to keep the defenceless penguins safe.

Once expected to be extinct by the year 2000, great efforts were made in the past few decades to resurrect and protect the Utah Prairie Dog.

Extremely social animals, they live in large colonies, building complex networks of tunnels underground. These tunnels can be very destructive to farmland, which is why they were poisoned and killed to the brink of extinction. They are still listed as a threatened species.

The Utah Prairie Dog has the smallest range of all prairie dog species and can be distinguished by it’s black ‘eyebrow’ marks and the white tip on its tail. They are only found in Southwestern Utah. This one was photographed at Bryce Canyon National Park.

Whether you call them Zeb ras or Zee bras these black and white striped horse-like creatures are one of Africa’s most easily identifiable animals.

There are Mountain Zebras and Plains Zebras, with more than half a dozen different subspecies. This one here is the Crawshay’s Zebra, photographed in South Luangwa National Park, Zambia. Variations in the size and colouration of stripes, as well as general body size and shape are common ways to tell Zebra species apart.