A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog

Hummingbirds of Fall 2021, a Summary in Pictures
November 2, 2021
Another autumn is behind us and soon, the snowy owls will be arriving. For now, enjoy a glimpse of these ruby-throated hummingbirds on their breathtaking journey across the continent, feeding non-stop as their wings flutter fifty times a second, their heart pumping at a dizzying seventy-two thousand beats per hour.                
Echoes
June 16, 2021
While the world still struggles with a stubbornly cruel pandemic, there is at last local progress and as NYC claims a seventy percent vaccination rate, our lives are veering back towards what was once normalcy, if there ever was such a thing. This weekend we did the unthinkable; we stood in line without a mask—even though distancing—and hopped onto a maritime instrument of public transportation, a.k.a. a ferry, along with a plethora of our fellow and so colorfully diver...
Maine Creatures Great & Small
June 12, 2021
Borders remaining stiff, we badly needed an escape and took a few days to revisit our favorite Maine spot. Fall had turned early summer, or rather late spring. But the forests were as lush, the sea everchanging and wildlife was delightfully abundant. Here is a brief kaleidoscope of the creatures and plants that made us smile or sigh sometimes, including a family of foxes right by the shoreline.   Short-tailed weasel   Foxes!   Bald eagle &n...
Revisiting the Flying Years
February 20, 2021
I have updated this old post about my flying years with vintage pictures, only worth reading if you really like aviation or very old, damaged color prints. X-ray Oscar Yankee (also known as XOY) and yours truly
Of Blogging and Entropy
Well my first post of the year, long overdue, is not loaded with new photos. Instead, I am going to ramble about these premises, how attached I am to my blog space, and yet how pointless it remains. I started this blog in 2004 while living in Little Cayman. Back then I sported a deep black Compaq Presario laptop and connected to Cable & Wireless internet through an internal modem and a phone line, at pitiful speeds. The first images I posted, mostly underwater sh...
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Maine
November 18, 2020
After two hundred debilitating days of quasi-total isolation, of hunkering down and stocking up, of washing hands, clothes and goods at a frenzy, of avoiding our kind like the new plague, and of barely buoying our sanity up through carefully distanced local park visits, Marie and I might have succumbed to cabin fever had she not, long in advance and out of sheer wisdom, booked a Maine cottage for a week. September had found us pale and weak, not so much in physical term...
Holding One's Breath
On a vu souvent Rejaillir le feu De l'ancien pays Qu'on croyait trop vieux Il est, paraît-il Des terres brûlées Donnant plus de liberté Qu'un meilleur novembre Et quand vient le soir Pour qu'un ciel flamboie Le rouge et le bleu Ne s'épousent-ils pas? Ne nous quitte pas Ne nous quitte pas Oh Démocratie Ne nous quitte pas   Bald eagle, Staten Island, USA, September 2020
Did Someone Say Noise?
August 22, 2020
Out at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife refuge yesterday afternoon, Marie and I were treated with the usual plethora of animal activity, a myriad of birds including multiple ospreys, a raccoon scurrying up the beach, a muskrat grazing on lush grass, and then, to our utter surprise as it is quite early in the season, we saw this charming little thing: Female ruby-throated hummingbird (I think) Now this was shot with my trusted, beloved, outstanding Canon 5D Mark IV and the 100-...
Seals!
May 9, 2020
Spotted a few weeks BC*, these two seals sat on a rock in weak afternoon light, dutifully soaking in the invisible waves of a pale sun, a stone's throw from the beach.  Perched Of all places in and around the city, Staten Island has over the years yielded the steadiest stream of cool fauna, bald eagles, ospreys, snakes, deer, groundhogs, salamanders, musk rats and now these adorable fury fluffs.  Adding to this list the dolphins and snowy owls of other bea...
Sweet South African Birds
April 12, 2020
The Western Cape is home to amazingly colorful birds, both in character and plumage. These were seen earlier this year in the Constantia garden and nearby Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. Just as we name any garden chameleon Meeleon, any male Whydah is called Charlie. We don't like him much as he bosses everyone around like an overzealous Bobby on a London street. But maybe we should empathize with his burden of carrying such a tail around... Charlie The swee...
Chameleons, 2020 Edition
April 6, 2020
With the world having plunged in utter chaos, looking at those pictures taken in the Constantia garden in February 2020 B.C. (Before COVID) makes me smile. They are such a good antidote to stress and worry. Boy George is right—they come and go—but I have yet to fail finding at least one chameleon, on any given trip to Cape Town, somewhere in the garden or the adjacent green belt. Meeleon These are photos of the same specimen hanging out in a tree at the bottom of the g...
South Africa From The Air
The images below are set in a pre-pandemic world, or rather, in hindsight, an early pandemic stage since the giant was already slowly but surely awakening and taking its first baby steps, soon to become devastating leaps. I had met Marie for a week in Cape Town, a last-minute trip decided after my May business travel plans had been canceled and future escapes seemed doomed. Marie had arrived early and was staying behind a while longer, and when I got back to the States ...