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.

New England

Photographing Nesting Birds

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This morning on a walk not far from my home in Lexington, Massachusetts, I found a Red-bellied Woodpecker’s nest! It’s that exciting time of year when birds in New England are nesting or preparing to nest, and us photographers have chances capture the associated bird behavior, which is always special.

Just remember whether you are photographing or just observing nesting birds, be super sensitive to the birds’ well-being. Pay close attention to their behavior, and make sure you are at a distance where the birds are comfortable approaching to swap incubation duties or make food deliveries to chicks. As long as you do it responsibly, finding and observing nesting birds is a very rewarding way to enjoy spring!

Below are a few images of nesting birds I’ve had a chance to photograph close to home over the past couple years. I’m excited to see what new opportunities this spring will bring!

Featured Image: The Landing

A tree swallow comes in for a landing at its nest,
A tree swallow comes in for a landing at its nest opening as its mate looks out, ready to swap. The great thing about photographing birds visiting their nests is that you get multiple chances to capture the shot you are after. The timing is tricky of course with small fast moving birds like this. The approach is basically to fire a burst of images as you see the bird come in for a landing. I usually don’t even look through the viewfinder in situations like this, but frame up the shot on a tripod, and then watch the movements of the birds, and start firing early as they approach so I don’t miss the shot. The goal is to catch the wings in a nice position like this, and the extra bonus of the mate peering out really makes the shot.

A Few More Nesting Birds from New England

A male pileated woodpecker visits its nest in a dead pine to feed its ravenous chicks.

Barn swallows nesting in a barn in southern Massachusetts made for a fun and easy to shoot subject, since they were accustomed to people and horses coming in and out and paid no attention to me with my camera.

This bluebird is delivering food to its chicks in its nest in a dead white birch tree, in an old woodpecker hole. Woodpeckers create nest cavities used by many other species of birds.

Here you can see the same nest from a different angle, as the male bluebird enters with food.

For you photographers out there, are you keen to get out and do more bird photography this spring? If you are working on mastering your camera skills, I have a course for you called “Birds, Camera, Action”. Or perhaps you are ready to get more creative and take your photography to the next level? I have a course for you called “Getting Creative”

As always, thanks for tuning in, and for your support of my work and the causes I support. Spring is here so be sure to get out and enjoy it!

Warmest regards,
Tim Laman

Fall Splendor in New England

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The fall colors have just peaked where I live in Massachusetts.  I hope wherever you are you have been enjoying the change of the seasons.  After a lot of time overseas this year, it has been nice to be at home for a while this fall.  What do I do when I’m not out on assignment, you ask?  A few things that have been keeping me busy are:

  • Editing a National Geographic magazine story, coming out in Feb. 2024.
  • Developing a pitch for a new orangutan documentary.
  • Creating a new online Masterclass in Bird Photography (sneak peak below).
  • Furthering my partnership with Windowsight – a way to display my photographs on your blank TV.
  • Creating six different bird-themed calendars for the holiday season.

But when I need my nature fix, I head out into the woods, often to my favorite local haunt, Walden Pond.  It’s always possible to find beauty and inspiration even at this modest natural area outside Boston.  Below you’ll find a few images that I made there within the past week.

Walden Pond Double Sunrise

It was the first night of the season when the thermometer dipped to freezing, and since the water was still much warmer than the air, I knew there would be early morning mist on Walden Pond.  I arrived before sunrise, and hiked around, looking for interesting compositions.  This brilliant maple caught my attention, backlit by the rising sun.  By moving my camera position slightly, I could control the sunburst effect, created when sunbeams pass through a small gap in the leaves directly into the lens.  To my surprise, I discovered a camera position where I got two sunbursts – one from the sun itself, and another from the suns’ reflection in the glass-calm pond surface.  The result is the image you see here – my favorite from that beautiful morning.

“Walden Pond Double Sunrise” is not in the print store yet, but if anyone is interested in a print, just drop us a quick note at studio@timlaman.com.

[Read more…] about Fall Splendor in New England

Maine’s Fall Splendor

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I hope you are all doing well, and if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, have been able to get out and enjoy the fall season.  Since I’m not traveling internationally quite yet, I took the chance to spend time up in Maine earlier this month, where the fall foliage this year was quite extraordinary, and I thought I’d take this chance to share a few of my new images.  

You can also scroll down and check out my latest idea on how to share my images and spread our shared love of birds.  I’ve created a line of 5×7 inch greeting cards featuring my backyard birds-in-the-snow and other images.  Have a look and maybe you’ll find one that will make a perfect holiday card.

My timing was perfect on my trip to Acadia National Park this October, and the fall colors were at their peak.  After passing Upper Hadlock Pond and seeing the potential for a beautiful image of the hillside with the amazingly variety of color in the trees, I kept checking back to try to get the right conditions.  I actually waited till after sunset on this day, when the afterglow reflecting from clouds in the West lit the scene evenly.  The wind also died at sunset, as often happens, and I got the perfect reflection that I was hoping for.  For you photography enthusiasts who like to hear these details, I made the broad panoramic image below taking a series of seven vertical images, each about 50% overlapping, and used Lightroom to stitch them together.  Since nothing was moving in the scene, this worked beautifully, and the result is very high resolution file that I could easily print ten feet across if I wanted.  The square portion above it just a section from the center of the larger image.  I love the amazing variety of hues of yellow, orange, pink, and red that came out in the trees under this soft light.  And of course, a perfect reflection just ads a lot to an image.  
[Read more…] about Maine’s Fall Splendor

The Making of “Loons of Mount Desert Island”.

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It’s been a crazy year, but one of the perks for me has been working closer to home, and spending more time with family.  Last summer, I took on a project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to film the early lives of Common Loons up in Maine, and my children Russell and Jessica, 20 and 16 at the time, were my crew.  We maintained our “covid bubble” while working out of a small cabin on Mount Desert Island.  Loons are spectacular and fascinating birds, and it was an amazing experience to spend so much quality time with them every day as we worked to tell their story.  Russell and I did the filming, and Jessica helped out in the field, made sketches and behavior observations, and then narrated the film.  So it was a true family project.  We are really happy with the result, and I think you’ll enjoy spending ten minutes with us as we explore the loon’s world.  The link is below…. Enjoy!

I’ve also selected a couple of my favorite still frames from the shoot to share here, and you can scroll down further to see a bunch of behind the scenes shots from the trip, and learn a bit more about how we filmed the loons in Maine.

 “Loon Birthday” 
This baby loon emerged from its egg during the night or early morning, and after a few hours in the nest, without ever being fed, walked down the ramp into the water and started swimming after its parents.  By afternoon they were feeding it small fish.  Loons rarely go on land except to breed.  They are strictly water birds, and this chick is no exception.  It may never set foot on land again until it begins nesting as a full adult.  It was amazing to witness and film the first day of this little chicks life, and the film features a sequence of it being fed its first fish.
[Read more…] about The Making of “Loons of Mount Desert Island”.

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Dear Friends,

I’d like to wish you all belated greetings for the New Year.  It’s been a rather rocky start here in the USA to say the least, but I’m optimistic that better times are ahead, and that by some time later this year, we will be able to resume international travel, gathering in groups, and many other things that we have had to put on hold in 2020.

[Read more…] about

https://www.timlaman.com/wildlife-diaries/2021/01/3056/

Once In A Blue Moon

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Dear Friends,

I’m sure you have all heard the expression “Once in a Blue Moon”, but did you know that a blue moon refers to the second full moon that falls in one calendar month?  This is pretty rare, occurring only about once every 2.5 years, but we had one recently on Oct 30, and I happened to be in the right place to photograph it.  Not that a blue moon looks any different than any other full moon, but still, the novelty of it added an element of interest.  This second full moon of October coincided with our first snowfall here in Massachusetts, and while it was snowing in the evening and the moon was not visible on Oct 30, I went before sunrise the next morning to one of my local haunts, Walden Pond, planning to photograph the sunrise after the fresh snow.  When I got there, still well before sunrise, I saw the full moon setting over the pond and raced to get set up and get a few shots before it disappeared.  The pond had not yet frozen, so the water, being warmer than the air, was creating a beautiful mist over the lake.  Combined with the fresh snow and moon, it was a very atmospheric scene, and I felt very lucky to be there to witness it that morning and capture the image below.  You make your own luck, as they say, and that certainly applies in nature photography!

Blue Moon over Walden
The full moon setting over Walden Pond on the morning after our first snowfall of the season.  Concord, Massachusetts, Oct 31, 2020.
[Read more…] about Once In A Blue Moon