Best of Long Island Wildlife Photography 11-15-19

By Mike Busch

Despite some record-breaking November cold, members of the Long Island Wildlife Photography group fanned out all over Long Island this week and came back with thousands of great photos. With help from Jim Botta, we chose about 80 of the best photos and videos below. It is impossible to catch every worthy photo so we apologize if we missed a few.

Notable finds this week include a Common Gallinule, Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, and a Brown Pelican that seems to have lost his way. Janis Hurley got a beautiful image of the Pelican below which is also this week’s cover shot.

Brown Pelican – Janis Hurley

Some of the first seals of the season are arriving on their winter grounds right on schedule. I ran into a solitary seal on Wednesday but he should be joined by another hundred or so in the next few weeks.

Harbor Seal – Michael Busch

If you would like to see them for yourself and learn all about them, you should consider taking a guided seal walk with Dr. Artie Kopelman of the Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island CRESLI. Artie has had over 20,ooo seal encounters since 2006. The walks will start on December 7th at Cupsogue Beach. For more information, reservations, full schedule and photo galleries click here.

There is also a little time to catch some Humpback Whale action on the American Princess Cruises with Gotham Whale. The action has been so good, they have extended the season. Unfortunately, this weekend has been canceled due to high seas but they plan on going next weekend 11/23 and 11/24. We may try to get a group together if the weather holds out and will announce next week.

If you have time, try to check out all 8 pages including some videos on the last page from Natalie Ann. I also included a video of schools of Striped Bass captured from a drone.