Wolf from the Grant Creek pack, Highway Pass, Denali National Park, Alaska. Canon 1Ds Mark III, 500mm f/4L IS, w/1.4x converter, 1/500 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400, taken from a bean bag from the sun roof of my vehicle. Earlier in the day my 500mm image stabilization started vibrating in the dual mode setting so I had to switch it to the panning mode. Fortunately, it seemed to work well enough to get me through a few days of shooting. Canon quickly repaired it for $500. The lens is like my left hand when it comes to wildlife photography and has produced countless super sharp photographs--many were hand held.
The Grant Creek wolf pack in Denali National Park has maintained a high profile along the road corridor, giving many visitors and photographers an opportunity to watch and photograph the social dynamics of a wild wolf family. If you are new to this blog, you may want to check out a couple posts I made earlier in the year when this same wolf pack attacked a young moose calf. The attack. After the attack.
I followed this wolf for some time in the latter evening, but this was the only decent opportunity I had to make a photo. The wolf paused on the tundra in a colorful patch of wildflowers for this portrait
