Wild Delaware

If you have already ordered your signed and numbered copies of Wild Delaware, here is some great news. You will receive these four prints free with each copy of the book you have ordered!

If you have not ordered your copies of Wild Delaware, now is the time.

This free print offer is for the first 1,000 copies of the book. Each book will be signed and numbered 1 through 1,000 and you will receive these four beautiful lithographs with every book. That’s a $200 gift with each $50 copy of Wild Delaware. Don’t miss out on this great offer, it is limited to the first 1,000 copies.

You can have a signed and numbered copy of Wild Delaware for your coffee table and four beautiful wildlife prints for your home or office.

Signed and numbered copies of Wild Delaware (and the four lithographs) will make wonderful gifts this Christmas!

Wild Delaware viewers have spoken and the Great Egrets win over the Red Fox in a landslide. And I agree.

Here is the cover of Wild Delaware!

Fox lovers take heart… the Red Fox will still be a two-page spread inside Wild Delaware.  Thanks to everyone for taking time to vote.

Sunrise quickly disappeared behind the clouds this morning and a mist fell over the Great Marsh near Lewes making a damp start to the day for the dragonflies.

Russet-tipped Clubtail dragonfly

Gray Petaltail dragonfly

Meet the Argiope aurantia commonly known as the Black and Yellow Garden Spider. These large spiders - the female can grow to three inches in diameter - are fairly common along the edge of wetlands and open fields in Delaware. Their large webs can be more than two feet across.

Delaware has some of the northernmost Bald Cypress trees in the nation and the best place to see these stately trees is Trussum Pond near Laurel. Bald Cypress trees can live for hundreds of years and the wood is valued for its water and rot resistance. There are many old Delaware homes as early as the colonial period covered with cypress shingles.

The most difficult part of wildlife photography is not the photography but knowing where wildlife will be and then getting close. And it always helps when you get a great tip.  Today a friend invited me today to watch the action at his hummingbird feeder. Sure enough, within just a few minutes a tiny male Ruby-throated Hummingbird arrived for a taste of nectar. At less than four inches long and with wings that beat 53 times per second, this little bird can both hover and fly backwards. The Ruby-throated is the only species of hummingbird that breeds in Delaware.

I have been working on my new book Wild Delaware for almost a year now and I have photographed an incredible menagerie of wildlife, insects and plants. But the relatively common Monarch Butterfly had eluded me until this morning. The “Monarch” gets its regal name because “it is one of the largest butterflies and rules a vast domain,” according to Samuel H. Scudder who first published the name in 1874.

Bumble Bees are our only native social bees (the common Honey Bee was first introduced to North America by Jamestown colonists in 1622) and the Bumble Bees were busy sipping nectar and collecting pollen from giant Marsh Mallow blossoms this morning.

Wild Delaware goes to press in two weeks. So it is time to select a cover. Here are my two favorite photographs for the cover. I would greatly appreciate you thoughts. Just add a comment for your favorite cover…

If you are a Northern Green Frog what better place to hide and wait for an insect to pass by than submerged in a thick carpet of Kermit-green duckweed? This smallest flowering plant in the world offers great camouflage from both predators and prey.