Birds

This winter, the salt lakes started to thaw at the end of January. The water in the lakes is very shallow, so waterfowl can easily stir up the mud, like this male Mallard duck. This has created some very beautiful shapes.

In spring at Donghu Lake, Wuhan, a Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) and her chick search for fish amid withered lotus stems whose reflections form geometric patterns on the water - like symbols written after the end of life. A contemplation on life's cycle. I waited on a bridge with a telephoto lens for the moorhen to enter this frame where abstraction, fantasy, and reality converge.

In the misty Atchafalaya Basin, ancient cypress trees rise from calm water while dozens of dark cormorants rest among their branches. Most are Neotropical Cormorants (Phalacrocorax brasilianus), but there are some Double-crested Cormorants (Ph. auritus).The pale fog, soft reflections, and silent swamp atmosphere create a timeless scene of wilderness, solitude, and delicate balance between water, forest, and wildlife.

I was able to photograph this Mute swan (Cygnus olor) at the end of winter on a lake in my area. Beautiful, thick snowflakes were falling. I used the flash to make the flakes stand out even more.

There is an abandoned military building in our neighborhood that has been abandoned for 30 years. I noticed that in the winter, on warmer days, flies would sit on the south wall and the birds would try to catch them, like this male Great Tit. I tried to photograph this scene with a wide angle.

Photographed at 2000m on the western slopes of the Andes in Ecuador, during the quiet moments before sunrise. In the deep blue of early morning, a Booted Racket-tail (Ocreatus underwoodii) moved through the mountain air, hovering briefly above the fading layers of the Andes, somewhere between the last shadows of night and the first light of day.

The unharvested sunflower field, full of high-calorie seeds, provided endless source of food for thousands of European goldfinches (Carduelis carduelis), followed by predators. There are also Bramblings (Fringilla montifringilla) and Eurasian siskins (Spinus spinus). Hidden for hours among the sunflowers, I tried to capture the essence of this extraordinary place. The long-exposure photograph captures a flock of goldfinches taking flight, across a frost-covered sunflower field.