The Mid-Atlantic region’s mild winters – temperatures rarely dip below 20˚ F – and plentiful sunshine make it hard to stay indoors for long. Many woodland birds and mammals have fewer hiding places, and the need to conserve energy means they’re often more interested in feeding than in running away from photographers. But the winter months also have their drawbacks. For starters, the bare geometry of the winter landscape is less forgiving of compositional laziness: how to assemble all those brutally crisscrossing lines into something useful? On sunny days, the harsh light rules out shooting between 9:30 am and 3 pm, particularly when there’s snow on the ground. Light cloud cover is more helpful, but there’s a fine line, easily crossed in winter, between lovely soft overcast and ugly dull overcast. And then there’s the reduced color palette: everything’s either brown or gray. Boring, right?

Well, no. I’m a big fan of the brown season. Critters we might not give a second glance in spring or summer reveal surprisingly intense colors on the winter landscape’s simplified canvas. White-throated sparrows, a common winter guest, are hard to beat if you’re looking to add a splash of color to your winter bird photography.

Female red-winged blackbirds display a glorious luminosity you didn’t know they possessed during the breeding season, when they pale next to their more dramatically colored male partners. And nothing, I think, brings out the rich tonality of grays and browns like the unassuming northern mockingbird, one of my favorite winter birds.

Among mammals, white-tailed deer make for rewarding winter subjects. Their thick coats are incredibly rich in tone and texture; to say nothing of the experience of sitting down among a herd of deer at rest in the woods and enjoying their company for a while!