Buttons Meets His Apple ...

“A simple act of kindness and compassion towards a single animal may not mean anything to all creatures, but will mean everything to one.”

                     ~ Paul Oxton

             ~ founder & director of 

         Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation

My favorite white-tailed deer button buck – Buttons, as I call him – meets his apple on an October day in the park as his mama doe stood close by.

I began photographing Buttons as a precious white-spotted fawn, then a sweet button buck and now a beautiful yearling, tossing him many apples, which he loves eating, along the way. It’s a true joy and blessing to me personally and as a photographer to watch this white-tailed deer grow.

Bubblegum Sunset ...

“To me, everything is beautiful. Show me a pink sunset, and I’m limp, by God.”
        ~ J.D. Salinger

             ~ 1919-2010

The cotton candy, bubblegum pink of a mid-November sunset brushes across the autumn sky at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Young Dreams ...

“Dream no small dreams.”

    ~ Victor Hugo

   ~ 1802-1885

A beautiful Juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk casts its eye across the landscape from a high perch on a late September afternoon kissed by the autumn sun on the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, along the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail) at Lehigh Gap, Slatington, Pennsylvania.

The Lehigh Gap is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and the D&L Trail.

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

Background texture by Jai Johnson added for artistic effect.