Photo Safaris By Region AFRICA - Masai Mara Wildlife Reserve, Kenya - Namibia—Land of the Himba - Cape Town—Photo Tour for Women ANTARCTICA - Ultimate Antarctica ASIA - Angkor Wat & Bagan - China's Winter Tigers & Giant Pandas - Japan's Winter Wildlife - India—The Palace on Wheels - Snow Monkeys & Giant Pandas - Essential China—Iconic Landmarks & Landscapes - Great Rivers & Mountains of China & Tibet - Mongolia—The Golden Eagle Festival EUROPE - Britain's Winter Birdlife - Eclectic Holland - Wildlife of Hungary & Transylvania - Transylvania—Romania of Myth & Legend - Venice - Tuscany - Turkey—Continental Crossroads - Provence - Spitsbergen—The Pack Ice Voyage - Ultimate Puffins - Albania, Macedonia & Montenegro NORTH AMERICA - Ultimate Wolves - Ultimate Yellowstone - Horses & Icons of the Wild West in Winter - Nature & Digital Photo Seminars with John Shaw - Monument Valley & Slot Canyons - Great Smoky Mountains - Grand Canyon at Havasu Falls - Predatory Animals of North America - Action & Adventure Sports - Humpback Whales of Alaska's Inside Passage - Glacier National Park Field Workshop - Denali National Park in Autumn - Brown Bears of Katmai National Park in Autumn - South Dakota Wildlife—Bison Roundup & Mount Rushmore - World's Best Raptor Shoot - Nova Scotia—Photo Tour for Women PACIFICA - Papua New Guinea SOUTH & CENTRAL AMERICA - Patagonia' Mountain Landscapes - Baja California—Whales, Wildlife & Wilderness - Easter Island & Machu Picchu - Mexico's Colonial Heartland Photo Safaris By Date JANUARY - Ultimate Antarctica - Ultimate Wolves - Ultimate Yellowstone - Angkor Wat & Bagan - Britain's Winter Birdlife FEBRUARY - China's Winter Tigers & Giant Pandas - Horses & Icons of the Wild West in Winter - Nature & Digital Photo Seminars with John Shaw - Japan's Winter Wildlife MARCH - Baja California—Whales, Wildlife & Wilderness - Monument Valley & Slot Canyons - India—The Palace on Wheels APRIL - Nature & Digital Photo Seminar with John Shaw - Patagonia' Mountain Landscapes - Eclectic Holland - Great Smoky Mountains - Wildlife of Hungary & Transylvania MAY - Grand Canyon at Havasu Falls - Transylvania—Romania of Myth & Legend - Venice - Tuscany - Turkey—Continental Crossroads - Snow Monkeys & Giant Pandas JUNE - Predatory Animals of North America in Spring - Action & Adventure Sports - Essential China—Iconic Landmarks & Landscapes - Provence JULY - Spitsbergen—The Pack Ice Voyage - Ultimate Puffins AUGUST - Humpback Whales of Alaska's Inside Passage - Glacier National Park Field Workshop - Denali National Park in Autumn SEPTEMBER - Masai Mara Wildlife Reserve, Kenya - Brown Bears of Katmai National Park in Autumn - Great Rivers & Mountains of China & Tibet - Albania, Macedonia & Montenegro - Namibia—Land of the Himba - Mongolia—The Golden Eagle Festival - Predatory Animals of North America in Autumn - South Dakota Wildlife—Bison Roundup & Mount Rushmore OCTOBER - Papua New Guinea - World's Best Raptor Shoot - Nova Scotia—Photo Tour for Women - Nature & Digital Photo Seminars with John Shaw - Easter Island & Machu Picchu - Mexico's Colonial Heartland NOVEMBER - Wet & Wild—Andean Condors and Iquazú Falls DECEMBER - No tours scheduled for December 2008 JANUARY 2009 - Cape Town—Photo Tour for Women

		Ultimate Antarctica February 2–March 1, 2006 Spring Fever in Galapagos April 29–May 15, 2006 Polar Bears & Wildlife of Spitsbergen June 26–July 8, 2006 Masai Mara Wildlife Reserve, Kenya September 8–22, 2006 Emperor Penguins of Snow Hill Island, Antarctica October 19–November 3, 2006 and October 31–November 15, 2006 It was the winter of 1980/81. We had rented the home of a friend in Floral City, Florida, to escape the paralyzing cold of a Canadian winter, and to shoot roll after roll of valuable stock images that we hoped would finance our new careers as freelancers. By March, our savings were almost gone. We picked and lugged oranges by day and ate oranges for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One morning, on our daily drive to the post office, we spotted a dead Virginia opossum in the ditch. We stopped to examine the animal and discovered that her body was still warm and that she had six tiny newborns tethered to the nipples inside the pouch on her belly. The first thought that came to mind was What kind of creepy crawlies lurk in the opossums scruffy fur that might like to abandon ship and search for a new hot-blooded host? Wayne had a different thought. Newborn opossums. Photographed with a Micro-Nikkor 55mm lens with existing light on Kodachrome 25 film. Lets take the dead opossum back to the house, prop open the mouth of her pouch with a twisted coat-hanger, ignore the leering gaze of nosy passers-by, and photograph the pinkies-in-the-pouch. A shot like that surely had to be worth some money? At that point, we had been in the business of stock photography for less than two years and we thought every shot we took had to be worth some money. On that fateful day in Florida we discovered that some stock photographs indeed make moneyand that there are riches to be reaped from roadkills. In the years afterwards, we sold the newborn opossum shots dozens of times and earned thousands of dollars with them. In fact, weve never sold another photo from that first trip to Florida, but we learned a valuable lesson. Roadkills rule. Roadkills provide the photographer with a unique opportunity to do close-ups that are impossible to do with living animals in the wildand flattened fauna sells. Right about now youre probably thinking, These Canadian wildlife photographers are real sickos. They cruise the highways and byways scooping up carcasses and immortalizing the innocent victims on film. Okay, so youre right. But...textbook and nature publishers constantly crave close-ups of anatomy that illustrate animal adaptations, and we sell dozens of these shots every year. So, stifle your squeamishness, find yourself a dead critter and pull out your macro lens. Theres work to be done. The beauty of flattened fauna is that it doesnt move, it doesnt bite and it doesnt flee. Its the ideal macro subject, although when the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, concentration can sometimes be a challenge. We dont want to bore you with a discussion on close-up photography; we already did that in two previous columns (July/August 2000 and September/October 2000). Instead, here are some of our most lucrative dead critter tales that we hope will tempt you to capitalize on carrion. A Hungry Cottonmouth If you want a career in roadkill photography (and who doesnt?); first you must read. You cant photograph animal adaptations unless you know what they are, and many are not obvious. Weve always believed that one of the biggest contributors to our success as wildlife photographers is our knowledge of biology. We know critters, and we know which aspects of their anatomy are unique and interesting. If were not sure about something, we toss the roadkill into the freezer and pull out the books. We did this on a trip to Florida after we found a dead juvenile cottonmouth. After we had taken some close-up shots of the snakes scale pattern we didnt know what else to do with the dearly departed. We found the answer in some scientific papers in the library of the local park headquarters. There it was on page 199. The fish-eating cottonmouth is known to consume carrion. Thats it, well simulate a feeding sequence. Now all we needed was a road-killed fish. No worries, mate; after an hour of checking ponds beside the highway we found half a dozen small dead mosquito fish. We posed our compliant cottonmouth on some aquatic vegetation and took a sequence of shots with the fish being slowly swallowed by the snake. Gulp. The feathered foot of a willow ptarmigan. The feathers increase the surface area of the foot by four times, and the long toenails are used to dig tunnels into the crusty snow. Micro-Nikkor 105mm on Fujichrome Provia 100. Ptarmigan Footage Wayne went to the Arctic one year in early April to photograph frosted musk oxen in a snowy landscape. It was a good trip, and besides musk oxen he got shots of arctic hares, snowy owls and ptarmigan. Back in the village of Sachs Harbour he began talking about ptarmigan with one of his Inuit companions, John, Jr. More accurately, the conversation revolved around ptarmigan feet and the dense feathering the birds have on their toes in winter that function as snowshoes. Thats the shot Ive always wanted, Wayne enthused. Its such a unique feature of these birds, but I can never get close enough. Moments later John Jr. handed Wayne two frozen unplucked ptarmigan. I think these birds will let you get really close. For the next half hour, they photographed frozen feathery feet. John had no interest in photography but he loved to laugh and the story of the kabloona from Calgary who flew 5000 miles to photograph the feet of a dead ptarmigan is still one of his favorites. Go ahead, John, laugh all you want. Cha-ching, cha-ching. The Revenge of the Bitten One July we were on assignment for Parks Canada in Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories. At the height of summer every insect in the park seemed to be bloodthirsty. There were clouds of blackflies, mosquitoes, deer flies and no-see-ums. The worst were the horseflies that were so big we swear you could hear the hum of their wings half a mile away. Guess who's coming to dinner? A hungry ant carts away an edible horsefly. Micro-Nikkor 55mm, electronic flash on Kodachrome 64 film. One afternoon we were sitting on the rocks beside the Slave River watching white pelicans fish in the rapids. The horseflies were unrelenting. If you killed one, six more showed up for its funeral. It was hard to believe that the bite of such a tiny creature could be so painful. Only sweet revenge would lessen the pain. We slapped the next horsefly that landed just hard enough to stun it. It wasnt a roadkill, but close enough. We took the dazed victim and presented it to a column of ants flowing over the rocks. Dinner was served. Within moments, the hapless horsefly was being dragged underground and we captured the lucrative moment on macro. The Poor Poorwill A grinning Joe Van Os told us a roadkill story of his own. A couple of years ago he was leading a spring Photo Safari in Saguaro National Monument and found a dead common poorwill beside the road. Joe, being a knowledgeable bird watcher, knew that the poorwill was famous for being one of the only birds known to hibernate. In the cold winters of the Southwest, the poorwill may wedge itself in a rocky crevice and enter a torpid state, letting its body temperature drop to 41 degrees F. Joe propped the bird on a rock, moistened its clouded eye with saliva to generate a catchlight and, voil, he had money in the bank. Weve seen the poorwill shot published a number of times and we always chuckle. Pocket Gopher Payday On Easter Sunday this year, we found a nesting great horned owl, and for three months we followed the growth of the three chicks. One morning in May, as we left our photo blind, we found a dead northern pocket gopher on the ground beneath the nest. The gopher didnt have a mark on it. The antics of the growing owl chicks had slowly destroyed the family nest, and the pocket gopher had probably fallen off the crumbling edge. Pocket gophers are hard to photograph in the wildmake that impossible to photographbecause these burrowing rodents rarely surface during the daytime. A northern pocket gopher makes a rare appearance on the surface during daylight. Micro-Nikkor 200mmon Fujichrome Velvia film. We could smell pay dirt. After a night in the refrigerator, the groomed pocket gopher was ready for his modelling debut. We located a field where there were mounds of loose soil excavated by other pocket gophers, dug a hole in one of the mounds, and buried our friend with only his head and front legs visible as he might appear during a rare moment on the surface. In the golden glow of late afternoon, the animals whiskers glistened in the setting sun. Ah, dollars from deception. Afterwards, we didnt know what to do with the pocket gopher and decided to let the owl family recycle him. Climbing up to a 35-foot-high great horned owl nest can be challenging, mainly because the mother owl may try to rake your head with her talons and/or knock you off the tree. One hockey helmet and a thick leather jacket later, Wayne was at the top of a ladder lifting the dead gopher into the nest on the end of an 8-foot tent pole. The mother owl swooped by once just to let him know who was boss, and then she perched above the nest, glared and hooted. The owl spotted the dead pocket gopher almost immediately. In her tiny bird brain we bet she was thinking, Where in hell did that tasty gopher come from? We had to act fast. Within five minutes Wayne was back in the blind, photographing the last of our beloved gopher disappearing down the gullet of an owl chick. The final score: one dead pocket gopher and four rolls of valuable photographs. Life doesnt get much better than that. Every day, 190 million vehicles sputter and spew along the highways of North America. By some estimates, nearly 300 million wild creatures are killed on the roads every yearthats nearly a million roadkills a day. Clearly, there is no shortage of dead critters to photograph. In our home, theres never a time when we dont have a roadkill or two chilling in the freezer, waiting for a photo op. Besides, you never know when unexpected guests may drop by for dinner. WARNING: Before you start peeling roadkills off the highway and taking them home for a photo session, make sure you know the wildlife regulations in the state or province where you live. In many areas, possession of certain species of wildlife, even road-killed critters, requires a special permit that you must obtain from your local Fish & Game office. Without the permit, you may be charged and fined for illegal possession of wildlife.

	Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris, Inc. P.O. Box 655, Vashon Island, Washington USA 98070 Phone: (206) 463-5383   Fax: (206) 463-5484    Email: info@photosafaris.com Copyright © 2008, Joseph Van Os Photo Safaris, Inc.