After nine months of prep—studying bear and wolf behavior, dialing in my gear, and working on my mindset—I needed one last field session to shake off the nerves. Big Branch Marsh delivered: a golden-light egret, waves of eastern kingbirds, and the surprise of not one but two great horned owls at sunset.

The mosquitoes were brutal, but the evening left me with more than images—it gave me confidence. I’m ready for Alaska: bears on the salmon run, wolves along the shoreline, moose in the wetlands, and raptors overhead.

Not just a trip of a lifetime, but a reminder of why I pick up my camera every day.

This was my first-ever sighting of the species, a bucket-list moment for me both personally and professionally. But as if that wasn't special enough, the bird gave me a photographer’s dream: it stuck its tongue out—right at the camera. A perfectly timed moment, it felt like a child caught mid-giggle during school picture day. You can spend years photographing wildlife and never catch something this rare or this comical. It’s one of those moments you couldn’t plan if you tried—and it’s exactly what keeps me coming back.

In the stillness of dawn, as the Tchefuncte River lay undisturbed beneath a watercolor sky, a solitary figure cut through the silence—Ardea herodias, the Great Blue Heron. I was tucked low in my kayak, nestled among the water lilies on the southern edge of a quiet tributary, facing north, when I caught sight of it from nearly 600 yards away.