Black-capped Chickadee

After a five minute walk down a trail at the Ipswich River Mass Audubon Sanctuary, you can stand all day with a handful of bird seed and watch as bird after bird lands on your hand to feed.  This Black-capped Chickadee isn't the only species that you'll hold in your hand.  Others include Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, English Sparrow, and multiple types of finches.

Landlocked Salmon

This is a Landlocked salmon, caught by my dad in Grand Lakes Stream, Maine.  These fish have a very interesting story.  They are technically the exact same species as the Atlantic salmon, but they live a completely different lifestyle.  Atlantic salmon live most of their life out in the ocean, only returning to the fresh water rivers that they were born in to reproduce and die.  Landlocked salmon, however, have evolved in a completely separate way.  They live their whole life in freshwater lakes and rivers, never making the trip to the ocean that their relatives do.

Redfish

This is a Red Drum, or a Redfish.  These fish can be found anywhere along the eastern coast of the United States and in the Gulf of Mexico.  Redfish are very fun to catch and delicious to eat, but unfortunately, they aren't going to be the topic of this post.  
When I caught this fish, I barely even noticed that it had been hooked.  My mind was in another place.  I was thinking about the fish that I was actually here to catch, the fish that should be on every fly-fisherman's bucket list.  Megalops atlanticus, or, Tarpon.  The entire trip to Islamorada, Fl, had been planned around the idea of knocking this species off of my list.  But, as I'm sure you can tell from the picture, we had no luck.  So, until March, when I try again, this picture will have to suffice as a place holder.   

Steller's Jay

This is a Steller's Jay, a very close relative of the Blue Jay, that lives in the western part of the United States, including Alaska.  And yes, it's in the process of swallowing a whole peanut, with the shell still on.  When I put a handful of peanuts out in my uncles backyard in Anchorage, Alaska, I really wasn't expecting much.  Maybe a few squirrels, or some ravens.  But I was bored, so I sat there for a little bit and watched.  When this bird showed up, I was expecting it to just grab a peanut and book it.  It then proceeded to swallow one, grab another in it's beak, and fly away, coming back every couple of minutes until the whole pile was gone.  Every time I would put more peanuts on the table, that bird would be back within five minutes, lugging them off to its tree somewhere.  At least it won't need to worry about going hungry this winter.        

Red Fox

When this picture was taken, I was in the outskirts of a small town in Alaska called Talkeetna.  I had been walking around in 5 degree weather with my uncle for hours, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of a rabbit for long enough to get a shot off.  The second when we thought we were going to go home empty-handed, a patch of snow in the distance moved.  Towards us.  Just when I realized it wasn't snow, just a very white rabbit, I saw the fox behind it.  Frozen in mid run, it stood for minutes on end, just staring at us.  And then for the next hour, this fox just...hung out with us.  It sat staring at us, sniffed us, and followed us until it started to get dark, when it trotted off into the woods, back to its hole.

My name is Max, and throughout the next couple months I hope to share stories and photographs of my experiences with nature, with whoever cares to read them.