Best of 2025 From My Clients: Glenn joined my group in Alaska in June and photographed this fun interaction between two Horned Puffins. (Photo © Glenn Hermes. Shared w/permission.)

2025 in Review: Favorite Images from My Clients Each year I share some of the top photo moments from my trips, as captured by my tour guests. Maggie sent me this double scent-marking action from South Africa. See more: www.maxwaugh.com/2025/12/21/2... (© Maggie Matthes. Shared w/permission.)

In honor of a certain team snatching victory last night… #seahawks

A White-bellied Sea Eagle is escorted out of the neighborhood by a flock of Javan Mynas.

It won’t make my 2025 favorites list, but this is still one of the more memorable scenes from my travels this year: a Verreaux’s Eagle-owl perched at sunset during the final game drive of my South Africa tour.

Hoping to warm up a bit and go play in the ocean soon, so I'm flashing back to our last snorkeling adventure in the Galapagos in February, where I saw this diamond ray.

Hard to believe it's been about a year since I kicked off my last winter adventures in Yellowstone. No park fun for me in the coming months, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll make it back sometime before my 2027 tours.

One of my new primate species this year was Hershkovitz's marmoset, found in a small pocket of the Amazon in Brazil.

From the archives: A trio of Collared Aracaris pull fruit from a tree in the Costa Rican rainforest.

It's always nice to see the Lilac-breasted Roller in action, as we did in South Africa in August. This species and the Sunbittern are the two birds that I will constantly be trying to improve upon when it comes to flight shots.

A popular subject during spring visits to Yellowstone.

Our very first leopard encounter during August's South Africa trip actually involved two cats. A patrolling male encountered this female, who tolerated him for a bit before retreating to a tree. After he left, she quickly returned to the ground and resumed her own exploration.

I just know that many of you saw yesterday's yearbook preview and thought, "I wish I could see that spider up close!" Here's a better view of the mama Huntsman guarding her egg sac, as well as another female Huntsman doing the same. Do you see the newly-hatched baby just below Mom #2?

PHOTO/25: My annual yearbook magazine is now available, recapping a year of adventures in print ($20) and digital ($7). It's also the only way to get a sneak peek at my "Best of 2025" picks! www.magcloud.com/browse/issue...

Someone just ordered some greeting cards this morning. It's another example of how my photos can be used to create any number of gifts in my Pixels storefront. Ornaments, tote bags, apparel... uh, shower curtains. You name it. Check out the Pixels store and get creative: pixels.com/profiles/max...

Check out this amazing shield bug spotted by my client April during October's Borneo tour. I've never seen this type of pattern on an insect before (I believe it's an immature individual).

Soon it'll be time to start sharing my Year in Review content, including my "Not Quite Best" and my favorite images and moments of the year. I wonder where these cubs will show up on the list?

Stay 4, Pay 3 for winter visits to our Yellowstone cabins: As part of the annual holiday sale, we're offering a free night (min. 4 night stay) at either of our cabins in Silver Gate. This is good for winter '25-26 stays booked by Dec. 31. 1 mile from the park: silverwillowscabins.com

I posted about my 2026 wall calendar collection yesterday. Here are a few of the pages from said calendars... remember, there are nine different themes this year!

Just a reminder that as part of my Holiday Sale, I'm still selling nine different nature and wildlife calendars. This includes five brand new themes, and four "Classic" themes. You can preview and order them all on my site: bit.ly/3U81mdE

Holiday Sale! It's time for my annual holiday sale, with my largest savings of the year on prints, some photo tour discounts... plus calendars, gift items, used gear and more. We're also offering discounts on winter stays at our Yellowstone cabins. It's all here: bit.ly/MaxWaughHoli...

A Red-shouldered Macaw heads out to explore the Brazilian Pantanal.

Today my team plays those nasty Oregon Ducks, so I need a bit of a preemptive palate cleanser. Here are some *good* ducks photographed around the world. (IDs in Alt text)

Black Friday, you say...

Here's the closest thing we saw to a turkey in Borneo. It's my best view of the Great Argus to date. I've yet to see a display, but that tail is impressive nonetheless!

We had some solid colugo (a.k.a., "flying lemur"... it's not actually a lemur) sightings in Borneo, including a few that were alert and curious during daytime hours. Borneo is the land of odd flying critters: we saw colugos, flying squirrels, flying frogs, flying lizards, and even a flying snake.

Most folks seemed averse to yesterday's cave monsters. Here's something slightly cuter, the tiny Sunda leopard cat.

Back to Borneo: The Gonmatong Cave visit was one of the main highlights for me on this trip. It was my first time there (closed during my last visit), and the amount of cool stuff inside was just wild. Here we have: long-legged centipede, a baby bat fallen from the ceiling, and oodles of roaches.

Random pull from the archives: A gathering at a carcass in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley back in January, 2013. Coyote, Bald Eagle, and Common Ravens are seen here. Wouldn't be surprised if there was a magpie around as well.

My, what big ears you have...

I'm glad you all enjoyed yesterday's monster find. Here's another close-up subject from Borneo, which is somewhat more benign (in terms of size): a harlequin tree frog. This is the most common frog we typically see during my night walks in Danum Valley. (Photographed in situ, no manipulation.)

SOUND ON. Instead of a photo, here's a short video from Borneo. Normally I don't condone handling of wildlife, but something was obviously stuck beneath our truck. You might say we were a bit surprised about what our guide pulled out...

The biggest surprise of my Borneo trip was seeing otters. Though I was aware of the presence of otter species in southeast Asia, we'd never come close to seeing them before. The smooth-coated otter was my third new otter species this year! View the full Borneo 2025 gallery here: bit.ly/4pn0f7x

New Borneo Photos: I was happy to get closer—albeit brief—views of the silvered leaf monkey (langur) when a small troop hopped through the trees during one of our river floats. As a bonus, we got to see the less common "red morph" of the species as well!

New Photos: Borneo 2025 My final new images of the year are up on my site. The Borneo trip kicked off with an amazing interaction, when we found Prevost's squirrels keeping an eye on a large reticulated python. Can you see the snake in the first photo? More to come from Borneo this week!

Still not quite there on my newest photos, which I hoped to start sharing with y'all soon. Here's a whale shark placeholder in the meantime. I hope this will suffice until we have new images in stock again.

I'm always up for a good Flehmen Response.

Soon I'll start compiling year-end content. This includes curating my favorites from '25 and creating the yearbook magazine I publish just for fun. Lots of highlights this year, including new species and better shots of old faces (e.g., finally seeing the Galapagos Dove up close back in January).

I'm trying to work through my last batch of new photos from this year, and I admit I'm probably more excited about them than those from my other trips this year. Why? The bugs!!!

I did peek out our windows last night, but saw nothing but cloud cover. Last night's aurora show (enjoyed by everyone else) took me back to last year, when we finally timed things right and I got to show my wife and son their first northern lights. One of my favorite moments of the year.

One of the funner moments from my South Africa trip occurred when these two little borbs decided to chase each other on the edge a lagoon. (They're Black Crakes, btw.)

I've witnessed giraffe "courtship" a couple times. It's not so much courtship as a bunch of lonely dudes lined up at one lady's table at a Speed Dating event. They just follow her (third head from right, facing us) until the one hot guy wins her affection. Seems like it's exhausting for her.

A white hot dog photographed back in the winter of 2020 in Yellowstone. We actually had two different long-tailed weasels scampering around in this spot at the same time!

Taking a break from Africa pics... here's a significantly cooler locale. On a peaceful morning in the Great Bear Rainforest, I stepped out on deck to hear the silence of this inlet broken up by the exhales of two humpback whales. This remains one of my favorite shots from the early years (2009).

African starlings are something else. They're as common as our Rock Pigeons (which are underrated, btw), but even better looking. Here we have the Burchell's and Cape Starlings, photographed during my recent South Africa trip.

It's cool tracking animal lineage even in places I visit infrequently. In South Africa, I reunited with two female leopards (Pics 1 & 2) that I first photographed as twin cubs 11 years ago (Pics 3 & 4). At 11, they're still strong, successful moms, and sport their own mother's long, squarish face.

When I think of Africa, corvids simply don't come to mind. There's no reason a crow *shouldn't* be successful in this environment, but we're usually distracted by other more colorful, exotic species to consider them. Thus, I was excited to get my first decent photo of the Pied Crow on this trip.

I should be saving this until the holidays, I suppose, but what the heck. In South Africa we saw a real "white elephant." Our guide spotted this calf, which looked slightly different from the rest of the herd. With lighter skin, pink highlights, and blonde hair, it was a leucistic elephant!

Continuing with new photos from South Africa... I think this is the last thing we photographed. Returning to camp on our way to pack up, we encountered a herd of impala. They proceeded to sproing across the track in front of us, offering me an opportunity to play with slow shutter speeds.

I try not to market my trips here as much as I do on other platforms... but it's probably important to mention that I only have TWO open spots left on my entire 2026 tour calendar. The Zambia: Rivers of Life tour takes place September 6 - 18: www.maxwaugh.com/workshops/za...