From birdwatching and identifying as many species of birds as possible in your local park to conducting an animal photography contest, many of the activities get you outside enjoying our world. Finding out if any of your local parks have nature trails reminds us that Spring really is coming.

For colder days, think about working with your local librarian to organize a free wildlife slide show event. Or study the voting records of local politicians so you find out who is a friend of the environment.

One of the most original ideas is to create a mini landfill, and see what products are partly biodegraded 3 months later. Check it out!

There are lots more ideas available on the Pennsylvania Resources Council, Inc. website, so follow the link I’ve provided above and have fun!

Clicking on More at the end of this article will lead you to a page with the links on it.  For some reason the links don’t show up here on my homepage.

Then if you want to learn some photography secrets of the master wildlife photographers, watch Marc Silber’s video (a little lower on the Wildlife Photography webpage) of David Smith discussing his craft. David loves being in the bush with the wild animals, and his passion shows itself in his photos. As with so many masters who love what they do, he enjoys sharing his knowledge about taking better photos and composing and framing shots (such as the point of thirds).

Upon arriving at Noah’s website, you will see a satellite imagery map with green circled numbers on it. Choose an area of our world and click on the green circle, and you will be virtually taken to the area to see what nature (such as animals) have been spotted and photographed in that area. I can imagine using this every time that someone I know travels.

You can enjoy Noah either without logging in or by becoming active and joining it through a Google or other account. This takes you to a page where you see the top spotters listed – with today’s leader having 885 spottings. That’s a lot!

You can participate in missions, and help discover and document local wildlife. Noah works with researchers and organizations to help gather important data, and missions can range from photographing specific frogs or flowers to tracking migrating birds or invasive species. Or they can be just for fun.

Today’s missions include helping to document the Gulf oil spill impact, squirrels, garden vegetables, urban biodiversity, and others. As Noah writes, this is a good way to become a Citizen Scientist.

Good Health suggests that good camera equipment helps people take well exposed photographs of animals.  Careful planning and good field skills help. Being able to cover enough distance to find the animals you’re looking for, and being patient while waiting for the right moment, both help.  An optimistic attitude that supports you while you wait for the right photograph is also useful.

For both people who do and don’t make wildlife photographs, if you enjoy looking at pictures of animals there’s millions of them online.  Two websites that I found this week are the following.

Nick Brandt is known for his black & white photographs that look like they could be paintings.  The music video director realized his love for East Africa when he was directing in Tanzania.  His photos are taken close to the animals, and he will track his subjects for days to get the perfect photograph. 

A sometimes amusing collection of color wildlife photographs is available through RGBPicture.  They’re worth a look.

Have a happy and safe long weekend!

The Museum is host to the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards contest, which is open and accepting entries till March 5, 2010. If you’re a photographer of any age you can enter online.

If you enjoy looking at superb photographs of animals, there’s an online gallery of the 2009 award winners.  You can even vote for your personal favorite photograph.

The website also has a section on the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife, which commemorates Gerald Durrell’s work with endangered species and his long-standing involvement with the photography competition.  The animal(s) in the photograph must be from the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as critically endangered or endangered, vulnerable or near threatened at an international or national level.

Thanks to Veolia for their role in sponsoring the competition.

The Award exhibit I attended showed a film about the patience and skill that photographers need to capture an image that wins an award.  Some say that luck plays a role.  The resulting images are well worth visiting, either online or in person.  Enjoy them!

(Note: The photographs used with this posting are not known to be from any award competition).