I consider myself lucky to be a morning person because as a nature photographer I have to get up early to photograph the birds, mammals and landscapes that I love and catch that early morning light to create a beautiful image. I remember working on my second book, "Birds of Prey in the American West," where I had to shoot raptors in the morning and owls at night. I put in long days and nights to capture some of the most difficult to photograph bird species and I had only one nesting season to finish the book. It took me about four days to get used to shooting at night because normally my body shuts down like a bird that goes to roost when the sun goes down; that adjustment was not an easy one. It's too bad I didn't have a Photo Trap back then to work on owls at night flying into their nest sites. It was always a surprise to see what kind of food they would bring in to feed their young.

On the last day of our six week high-speed flash hummingbird photography shoots in southern Arizona, I shot 20 gigabytes of these marvelous birds in flight. We were leaving the next day for the three day drive back home to Pennsylvania, and I was busy packing the truck with the assorted flashes, Bogen supports and Mary's cooking paraphernalia. I knew this packing would occupy most of my day but the temptation of getting just one more great shot, one more unique pose, was too much for me to ignore. With that hope I kept one of our hummer sets going while I did my Rubik's Cube puzzle of packing the truck.

Author’s note: In November 2007, I had the good fortune to talk with controversial writer and environmental activist Derrick Jensen (see http://www.derrickjensen.org/). During our conversation I asked Derrick a number of questions pertaining to subject matter explored in his books “A Language Older Than Words,” “Listening to the Land” and “Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening to the Nightmare of Zoos.” The latter is the 2008 Eric Hoffer Book Award winner. His replies proved to be, as I anticipated they might, insightful, interesting and thought provoking. This first part has to do with human use and abuse of wild animals.