First rays of the sunrise on Mount Cadillac, Acadia National Park

The summer sun breaks above the horizon to start a new day in Acadia National Park

While our trip to Acadia National Park was not explicitly for photography, it's hard to be in such a beautiful place without wanting to take advantage of the golden hours. Seeing the sunrise from the summit of Mount Cadillac is something I would have wanted to do anyway -- it's not everyday that you get to be in the first place in the U.S. to witness the sunrise (well, at least it holds that distinction in the winter months) -- but it really is a "thing to do" there. While the photographers visiting Mt. Desert Island would surely be used to waking up at 3-something in the morning in order to reach their destination by sunrise, I was shocked at the number of visitors who lined the summit each morning. What surprised me more though was how quickly almost everyone jumped back into their cars only a few minutes after the sun had fully emerged from below the horizon.

View more landscapes from Acadia National Park.

Morning light illuminates granite, Acadia National Park

The golden rays of a mid-August sunrise cast a warm glow on the granite in Acadia National Park

My wife and I took a much needed final summer trip to Acadia National Park a few weeks ago. We've been wanting to see the park ever since moving to New England, and it did not disappoint! Two of our three mornings in the area we headed up to the summit of Mount Cadillac to catch the sunrise, which was a definite highlight of our time there. Acadia is certainly not a park to visit if you're hoping to photograph wildlife, but the landscapes are incredible. There's something very special about the mix of granite, water, trees, and sunshine on Mount Desert Island and I can't wait to return!

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Dunlin catches a worm, Plymouth Beach

A dunlin prepares to eat a worm it just pulled from the sand along Plymouth Beach, Massachusetts

On a late spring trip to Plymouth Beach, I had the good fortune of watching a flock of dunlin feeding in front of the rising tide. While I've previously photographed dunlin catching clams on Plum Island, it was a new experience to see this one pull out a worm from the exposed sediments.

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Submitted to Wild Bird Wednesday - follow the link for this weeks posts!

Tule elk with a vine on its antlers, Point Reyes National Seashore

A bull tule elk is lucky to have only vegetation wrapped around its antlers in Point Reyes National Seashore

This photo of a bull tule elk in Point Reyes National Seashore is back from a foggy morning in 2011. If you look carefully, you can see a long vine wrapped around the base of his antlers. This is rather common during the rutting season as bulls aggressively brush their antlers on the ground to pick up grasses to carry on their antlers. For some elk though, this can be quite dangerous if they get tangled in broken lines of barbed wire fencing lying on the ground.

This is a long introduction to refer you to a great write-up done by fellow Point Reyes photographer Jim Coda about the potentially (un)wildlife-friendly fencing practices in Point Reyes National Seashore.

Pronghorn portrait, Yellowstone National Park

A pronghorn chewing on its early morning breakfast in Yellowstone National Park

I've recently found myself reminiscing about the trip my wife and I took to Yellowstone National Park back in 2011. With the craziness of visiting the park while in the process of moving across the country, I never fully sorted and processed all of my photographs. While flipping through my archives recently I came across this portrait that was flagged as a pick but otherwise ignored. This pronghorn was a member of the herd that we saw almost every morning feeding near the Roosevelt Arch.

View more of my photographs of pronghorn in Yellowstone National Park.