Thanks for the kind words, Corinna! THs two middle shots don't have special stories to go with them, but the first and last do.
THere was a great gray owl irruption in southern Quebec during the winter of 2004/5. I shot 20 rolls of slide film that winter trying to get good flight shots. Once I was trying to get flight shots hand-held with a small 300mm f4. I turned around after tracknig a bird in flight to see my discarded tripod being used as a perch. THese birds were VERY hungry and couldn't care less about humans -- they were not afraid of people, hence the easy close-ups.
When traveling by car through the HUGE Mount Royal Cemetary in Montreal, I saw what looked like a dog but turned out to be a red fox. I stopped the car and gave chase on foot, lugging the big 500 f4 along with me. I feared that a grieving individual was annoyed as he watched me run between the tombstones after this fox -- I relaxed when I saw him quickly open his trunk, pull out a big lens and joined me in my chase! THis was one of the few usable shots from what you might imagine was a difficult shoot. I had never seen a fox in the wild before.
Scott