Tim Laman

| Wildlife Photojournalist

Wildlife Diaries

The Wildlife Diaries newsletter is the best way to keep up to date with Tim Laman’s latest work and travels, and to learn about photography and natural history as well. Read through his recent posts here or sign up to receive the posts via email using the form on the right.

Featured Stories

Where Reef Meets Rainforest

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Have you heard of the Raja Ampat Islands?  They are a unique archipelago off the Western tip of the big island of New Guinea.  I’ve been intrigued by this region ever since reading The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace, and exploring this region above and below water has become a personal passion since my first visit in 1990.  It doesn’t hurt that the islands harbor birds-of-paradise, and the coral reefs are now known to be the richest in the world.

As a rain forest biologist and a marine enthusiast, I’m fascinated by places where the rain forest meets the sea.  Raja Ampat is a premier example of this.  In fact, it is the best I have ever seen.  The striking islets of uplifted limestone eroded by sea and weather give Raja Ampat some of the most striking scenery in Indonesia.  Here, as elsewhere, the land and sea are intertwined, and due to very little runoff from the porous limestone islands, corals can grow right up to the shore, even under overhanging forest, as you can see in the featured photo below.  I hope you are inspired to visit Raja Ampat some day, to support the growing green tourism economy there.  I certainly plan to go back as soon as possible!

There is a very unique place in Raja Ampat, where the current sweeps through a narrow channel between the islands of Gam and Waigeo.  It is known as “The Passage”.  It’s a tricky place to photograph, because depending on the tide, the water can be murky, or the current can be so strong it’s almost impossible to stay in one place.  But we got our timing right on this visit, and I was able to snorkel along the steep walls, and under the overhanging trees to look for the spot to capture the image I wanted.  Corals don’t usually grow right up under rainforest trees, because in most places where there is forest, there is too much sediment coming into the sea for healthy coral growth.  But the porous limestone of these islands yields very little sediment, so corals are thriving right under the trees.  I found my spot.  Then I waited for that extra element to add to the image.  This is also the habitat of the famous archer fish that shoots water jets to knock insects from branches into the water.  When two archer fish swam into the frame, I had my shot!
“Reef Meets Rainforest” is now Available for purchase in my Fine Art Store
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Filming Loon Families in Acadia

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Dear Friends,

As I reported in my last newsletter, I had a chance to spend time filming in Maine’s Acadia National Park and vicinity for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology this summer.  Besides peregrine falcons, the other primary focus was to document breeding pairs of loons and their chicks.  This was a partnership with the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary [www.somesmeynell.org] who not only allowed us to film on their private reserve near the park, but also helped guide us to good locations for filming other pairs of loons on territories all over Mt. Desert Island, so a huge thanks goes out to Billy Helprin of Somes-Meynell.

Our video for the Cornell Lab is currently in production, but in the mean time, I’d like to share a few images.  Loons are an iconic species of the North, and a true indicator of a healthy environment, and it was a pleasure to spend time with them.  A real highlight was being able to see chicks from hatching through several weeks of age, and document their rapid growth and development.  Enjoy!

Featured Photos

Loon chicks leave the nest the day they hatch, and can immediately swim, like this one-day-old with its attentive parents.
Loon parents work hard to feed their chicks, and they grow rapidly, but sometimes the fish come so fast, they can’t get the chicks to take another bite.
[Read more…] about Filming Loon Families in Acadia

Pursuing Peregrine Falcons in Acadia

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Dear Friends,
 
This summer, my travels for several international projects were of course put on hold, but an opportunity came up with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to film birds in Acadia National Park.  I needed a team to assist me, and fortunately my two children, 16 year old Jessica, and 19 year old Russell, were home and available.  They have had many years experience assisting me in the field, so with my “quaranteam” in place and our negative covid tests in hand, we headed to Maine to isolate ourselves in the mountains and attempt to film peregrine falcons.
 
Acadia National Park is one of the places where the critically endangered peregrine falcon was re-introduced to the wild in the 1980’s, and has been successfully breeding since the early 90’s.  With the park biologists unable to do fieldwork this year due to covid, our mission was to visit two of the cliff-top breeding sites, and document how many juvenile birds had fledged, and to try to capture some footage of the young birds for a video to be produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  Stay tuned for that later this fall, but in the mean time, here are a few images I can share of these amazing birds.

Featured Photos

Adults like this bird only passed by a couple times a day, but were clearly distinct with their black head and white neck.
 Here you can see in detail the juvenile plumage of a falcon as it comes right toward me. The juveniles still used the cliffs where their nest had been as their home base, and came back repeatedly throughout the day.
[Read more…] about Pursuing Peregrine Falcons in Acadia

Documenting Orangutan Diversity

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An adult male Bornean Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) named Jari Manis sits in the sleeping nest he has made in a small tree.

Currently, Tim is in the rainforest of Indonesia working on his orangutan project for the summer.  Part of the project is a new National Geographic story which he will document their behavior in several different populations around the country.  Check Instagram for pictures from Tim in the field.  @TimLaman

Exploring a “Lost World” in Australia

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Our pilot Bungie flies his helicopter low over the rainforest and boulders of the Cape Melville Range as he comes in to pick us up from on top of one of the giant boulders and move us to a better location. Herpetologist Conrad Hoskin and were dropped off in this remote mountain range for several days, and I documented Conrad’s discoveries of several new species of reptiles and amphibians, including the spectacular new “Cape Melville Leaf-tailed Gecko”. Cape Melville Range, Cape Melville National Park, Cape York Peninsula

See the blog post about this expedition here.

Also see the “In the Media” page for links to various news reports about this expedition and its discoveries.