Favorite Photos of 2016 (and Before)

This is a thing that a lot of people who have photography blogs do, so I'm going to do it, too. Since this is my first "Favorite Photos of [Year]" post, and I've been a hobbyist photographer for about two and a half years, I'll include photos from as far back as 2014. So now, in no particular order, here's a selection of some of my favorite nature photos.

Flowers? Yep. Usually when I photograph flowers it's for identification purposes, but I do occasionally turn my lens on them for aesthetic reasons. This photo was taken at Lake Hope State Park in April 2015. I thought the little chain of spring beauties behind the bloodroot made for a nice composition.

A red-shouldered hawk nest! We've had a nesting pair in the picnic areas at Blacklick Woods for the last few years.

A red milkweed beetle on—you guessed it—a milkweed leaf. I wish I'd gotten a better focus on the face, but this is still one of my best early insect photos.

This is why I love insects! What we have here is a Diogmites robber fly (one of the "hanging thieves") hanging from a yew needle by one leg as it devours a European paper wasp butt-first. Could it get any more hardcore? Just please excuse the gross overexposure in this image.

Action pose! I was happy to find this little mantid nymph on my mailbox. We're so used to looking down at insects, shooting them from below always creates an engaging perspective.

I consider this portrait of an eastern carpenter bee my best macro portrait of an insect, and both this photo and the one of the mantid nymph above were taken with my smartphone (the Samsung Galaxy S4 at the time). It's amazing how good phone cameras are!

It was hard choosing a favorite dragonfly photo, but this eastern amberwing wins. Gotta love those amber wings, but what I really like is all of the smaller stuff sharing this dragon's perch. Tiny aquatic snails and some equally-small six-legged critters, plus a shed exoskeleton on the end from I know not what. To provide scale, keep in mind that amberwings max out at an inch in length, the smallest dragonfly you're likely to see in Ohio.

D'aww, look at this chipmunk sticking his little head out a hole. :3

Oh hi, Rusty the eastern screech owl. I remember you from that O.N.E. photography workshop.

Oh, albino gray squirrel, your inquisitive eyes peer into my soul. They make me ask myself things. Things like, "Why didn't I have the flash on when I took this picture?"—It's so BACKLIT!

This beautiful American bullfrog was on a log in the buttonbush swamp at Blacklick Woods. She let me get down on her level with my camera only about a foot away to take this photo.

A northern watersnake basks on some rocks along Lake Erie in Sheldon Marsh State Nature Preserve. I was inches away when I took this close-up.

It's a fungus, which I believe to be resinous polypore, Ischnoderma resinosum. Fungi are fascinating; you can expect a post about them at some point. I like the beads of moisture on the rim, which are due to an interesting process called fungal guttation. I also like the four bands of color in this image: three on the mushroom, and the green moss growing below creates the fourth.

Of course I had to include one of my five-lined skink photos from Cedar Bog...

...and the photo of the showy lady's slippers with the adorable katydid nymph!

A gartersnake chillin' in a tree outside the nature center at Blacklick Woods.

Another smartphone photo. It's a Melanoplus grasshopper nymph. It may be just a nymph, but it's already handsome with those black stripes on bright green and yellow.

This raccoon kit was taking a nap at the feeders behind the nature center. For several days it seemed to be napping while its siblings were busy eating, which leads me to believe it may have actually been sick at the time, poor thing.

A red-eared slider cruises through some duckweed in a pond at Inniswood Metro Gardens.

Two male snapping turtles fight for dominance of Blacklick Woods's Ashton Pond. This might be my single favorite photo in this list. I still consider the aquatic sumo match of these two to be one of the coolest things I've witnessed in Metro Parks.

I love spotted cucumber beetles, agricultural pests or not, and I enjoyed watching this one nibble on a milkweed leaf, which I didn't know was something they did. Taken with a smartphone.

A yellowjacket hover fly nectars on swamp milkweed in the nature center garden. Syrphid flies are darn good pollinators, and this one's a darn good yellowjacket mimic, too! 

And that's it! Count 'em: 22 photos. (If that seems like a random number, it's because I initially picked 20, then realized I had none from 2016 and threw in a couple more.) I wasn't very photographically active last year, but I already know I'll be doing some travelling in 2017. Here's hoping I get some awesome photos in... Switzerland and Puerto Rico! YEAH THAT'S RIGHT. I'm travelling the world this year! Woo!