Red Fox mid-air mousing pounce from Yellowstone

SilverPenguin · 3 Feb 2011 at 21:00

Hey all. Having a great time in Yellowstone, although today I woke up feeling pretty rough with pounding head and sore throat. Opted to play it safe and sit out of todays snow coach trip and get some extra sleep so that I'm back on form for the final 4 days in the park. Gutted but what can ya do. It's been between -37c and -30c for the last few days so figured I needed to keep warm today to stop this in it's tracks.

Anyway, it's given me some time to look over images and catch up on some web stuff.

Here's a mousing fox, caught mid pounce from a few days ago. Unfortunately, the shutter speed was too slow so it's not sharp enough, and not blurred enough for a sense of movement. As it is, it just feels soft to me. Full frame on the height, but cropped to pano for better composition.

D7000 with 600mm. You can read more about the capture, as well as see a couple more images from the pouncing sequences on this article on my blog.

Cheers all

Rojin · 3 Feb 2011 at 21:08

Nice, sounds like an amazing place to be

DB_SamX · 3 Feb 2011 at 23:34

I think it's a brilliant capture, nice explaining it in the blog entry.

D.P. · 4 Feb 2011 at 08:00

Stunning capture. Pity if it is too soft. otherwise it would be a lifetime capture. :-(

great write up. I plan to get to yellow stone next year.

Wires · 4 Feb 2011 at 08:21

nice shot, have to ask though is yellowstone seeming a bit unstable to you? saw a news report it was becoming a bit more active recently?

Fireskull · 4 Feb 2011 at 08:36

lol not worth worrying, if it goes were pretty screwed.

Lovely capture! shame its soft.

sillyswede · 4 Feb 2011 at 08:47

That's amazing, well captured! The beauty of this animal stands out even more against the snow.

Somewhat scary news about the volcano; read it too. It's been doing this over the last few years. One of these days it's going to blow, and as Fireskull says, it'll change everything... It's already 40,000 years overdue. :/

Cosimo · 4 Feb 2011 at 08:57

Wow, what a great capture and good read.

cochoc · 4 Feb 2011 at 10:47

I watched the series on BBC about Yellowstone and they showed the fox diving into the snow for the mouse. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! It's amazing that it knows where the mouse is!

Took a road trip around the south west last year and visited yosemite, mariposa, zion, bryce, monument valley and the grand canyon. Yellowstone was the one place we wanted to go, but couldn't fit in....one day!

Really envy you being there in the winter btw. And what a great photo. It might be soft as you say, but I would give away a hundred of my sharp photo's for that soft one