VIEWFINDER

Nature Photography Leads to the Wild Side of Life

THE GREAT JOY of wildlife photography is realized when months of planning meet a moment of opportunity. Sometimes that opportunity reveals the unexpected.

Photographer Tom Vezo silently stalks wildlife with a camera. He wants his photographs to tell us something new about a wild species. Sensitive to the rhythms of the moment and armed with in-depth knowledge of his furred and feathered subjects, he hopes to document rarely seen behavior.

"Documenting the lives of birds is a hunt without a gun," Vezo says. "It's challenging and exciting. You never know what images you will come home with. Over time I have gained an extreme interest in the lives of birds, almost to the point of becoming scientific about my findings."

Seldom has one photographer so dominated an issue of Arizona Highways that he or she scores the front cover and three exclusive byline stories inside. Vezo photographed both bald eagle stories-our cover story about eagle myths, "Swoop and Soar, Death and Rain," beginning on page 8, and "Devoted Nestwatchers Nurture a Comeback," on page 16. He also shot our story on Arizona's birding boom, "The Odd Language of Love Among Birds and Birders," starting on page 32. And to top it off, his dramatic image of a bald eagle in flight was selected as this issue's front cover, the most important and sought-after photo position in the magazine. It's the culmination of months of travel and hard work for a city-boy-turned-nature-photographer.

You might say wildlife photography led Vezo to the wild side of life. Born in Brooklyn, New York, hardly a hometown to inspire a nature-lover, he discovered the wonders of the natural world through photographs he saw in books and calendars.

One book in particular played an important role in Vezo's early development: The Birds of North America by Eliot Porter, the person who inspired him to pursue bird photography in the first place. "What I love most about Porter's bird photography is how he captured the beauty of these wonderful creatures with their lifestyle and habitat in his vision," says Vezo. "He added spirit, a sense of place and realism to his images."

Realism is an important element of wildlife photography, but sometimes things can get too real.

On a recent trip to finish up work on his new book, Wings of Spring: Courtship, Nesting & Fledging, Vezo traveled with a professional filmmaker into Canada's old-growth forests to find two great gray owl chicks nesting high up in a tree. For three days they observed and photographed as the adult owl cared for the fledglings.

When they returned to the nest on the fourth day, the chicks were gone. Fearing predation, they were lamenting the sad outcome in hushed tones when suddenly they heard the cry of one of the chicks perched on a nearby branch.

"What a relief," Vezo said. "After doing a little research, we found out that great gray owl chicks jump out of their nests at a certain time in the breeding cycle."

They waited patiently for the adult to come in to feed the chick, and they weren't disappointed. "She came back with a mouse. Our motor drives were smoking as she continued to feed and preen her baby for 15 minutes. What a magical moment! The only thing missing was the other chick," Vezo said.

On the fifth morning of their trip, Vezo's filmmaker friend returned alone to the nesting site, hoping to get more footage of the owls. Later that day when Vezo met him for lunch, the friend hinted that he had documented something special on his morning shoot. "I followed him back to his camper where he showed me the video he'd shot that morning," Vezo said.

He was not prepared for what he saw on the tape.

"When the adult owl came back to feed her baby, we were astonished to see that, this time, she brought with her the carcass of the missing chick," Vezo says. "She proceeded to feed it to the surviving chick, and then finished the remainder herself. The missing chick must not have survived the jump from the nest."

Months of planning met a moment of opportunity. And even though Vezo wasn't there to capture the finale to this natural history epoch, he knows that the next time he enters the owls' world there'll be more opportunities. Because nature's saga always carries the addendum "to be continued." "There is so much more to learn about bird behavior, so much that is still unknown," Vezo says. "Every time I go out into the field, I learn something new from the creatures I photograph. But this experience was over the top. It's too bad I wasn't there to document that behavior. Or, maybe not..."