William H. Wiley
402-875-1809
bill@wmwiley.com
1221 Rockhurst Dr.
Lincoln, NE 68510
Lower Antelope Canyon is located in the American Southwest in north central Arizona. It’s one of two slot canyons on Navaho land, formed by flash floods over thousands of years. Approximately a mile long, it’s essentially a 100-foot deep crack in the ground. When the sun shines down on its swirling sandstone walls a rainbow of colors makes it an amazing sight to behold.
Photographed at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge on an extremely cold winter morning, this deer foraged through the frost-covered brush without being aware of Bill’s presence. Icicles hung from tree branches and the surrounding woods looked like a winter wonderland, in spite of the 15 degree temperature. Hoarfrost is a deposit of ice crystals on objects to the free air such as grass blades, tree branches or leaves. It is formed by the direct condensation of water vapor to ice at temperatures below freezing and occurs when air is brought to its frost point by cooling. In this picture, the moment the sun rose high enough to touch the hoarfrost it instantly melted and the scene turned to its normal color, light brown.
The monarch butterfly may be the most familiar North American butterfly and is considered an iconic pollinator species. Its wings feature an easily recognizable black, orange, and white pattern, with a wingspan of 3½ to 4 inches. Studies attribute the ten-fold decrease in the eastern monarch population from 2006 to 2016 to the loss of breeding habitat due to herbicides used by farmers and homeowners on milkweed, a plant used as a food source by monarchs.
