Tim Laman

Photography & Exploration | 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.

Wildlife Diaries

King of the Jungle

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In the Indonesian language, “orangutan” means “person of the forest”.  Of all my orangutan images, I think that this one captures the feeling of that name the most.  When you look into the eyes of this adult male orangutan in his prime, you can’t help wondering what he is thinking, and it is totally understandable that humans who encountered wild orangutans in the forest thought of them as the “people of the forest”.
Purchase “King of the Jungle” on my Fine Art website

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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The Parrots and The Termite Mounds

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Dear Friends,

Between spending time outside photographing winter birds here in New England, I’ve been in my studio working through my archives gathering old favorites and discovering unpublished gems for a potential book project on my bird photography from around the world.  This week, I was “virtually” in Australia, reliving a series of expeditions to the remote Cape York Peninsula where some years ago, our team from National Geographic and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology worked to document some of the rarest and most endangered species found in this wilderness.  One of the standouts was the Golden-shouldered Parrot, an endangered species with only about 300 breeding pairs remaining.  I was able to photograph them in their unique habitat dotted with giant termite mounds.  I hope you enjoy the images and behind-the-scenes video below.  It is always my hope that by sharing the stories of endangered species, we can increase awareness and have a positive impact on their future.

THE LANDING – GOLDEN-SHOULDERED PARROT

A male Golden-shouldered Parrot comes in for a landing at the entrance to its nest cavity in the side of a tall termite mound.  This highly specialized bird has a very limited range in this unique forested grassland habitat, where it digs its burrow into the termite mound in the early wet season when rains soften the tower.  The termite tower is actually the cooling system for the termite nest below, and the birds also benefit from the termite’s engineering that keeps the nest chamber at around 28-30 degrees C throughout the day.  To capture this image and the ones below without disturbing the birds, I set up a blind a safe distance away before sunrise, and used a BIG lens.  I’ve included a time-lapse video below so you can see my setup!

THE LANDING is not yet in our Fine Art online gallery, but let us know if anyone is interested in a print and we can make it happen! Let Rachel know at Studio@TimLaman.com.

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Capturing the “Ibis Moon” Image

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Dear Friends,

I hope this finds you well and feeling optimistic about 2021.  It’s going to be another challenging year, but I think things are looking up.  Stepping outside last night to have a look at the full moon, I was reminded of my image below.  It’s not often I can include the moon in an image of birds, but when it happens, it makes for something special.  I hope you enjoy the story behind the image.

Ibis Moon
I was in the remote outer delta of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, in pursuit of images of one of the most brightly colored birds on the planet, the Scarlet Ibis.  The mangrove islands in the delta provided these birds with the perfect roosting site, safe from predators, and close to the mudflats where they foraged at low tide.  Every afternoon, ibises would come flying back to their roosts, and this give me the chance for some flight shots.  One afternoon as the sun neared the horizon, the waxing gibbous moon, a couple days away from full, was rising in the eastern sky and I noticed that some of the small groups of ibises sometimes passed almost in front of the moon.  Moving the small boat I was shooting from to line up the approaching ibises with the moon the best I could, I started tracking and shooting the flying birds as they passed near the moon.  This image was the result, and I love the way the composition is balanced between the three birds and the moon.  I also love the simple but bold color palette of the image.  It is rare to have a color photograph that has basically just two bright colors, the red birds and the blue sky.  It is very satisfying to capture a moment like this in a still photograph, which you know will never ever be repeated.  It’s a one-of-a-kind image.
IBIS MOON is part of my Limited Edition selection of prints
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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.

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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.
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