LAKE CHARLES – A 58-year-old freelance photographer who specializes in wildlife photos recently snapped a photo of a specklebelly goose that spent this past summer in Alaska.

Bubba Naquin’s lens to the wonderful world of nature focused on three ducks flying over the marsh in Cameron Parish at 1:20 p.m. Nov. 22. The lead duck caught his attention because it was wearing a collar with a transmitter.

Naquin, curious about the specklebelly’s travels, contacted the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries research waterfowl biologist who tags and collars waterfowl across southwest Louisiana. The biologist, who has given him information on many other occasions, told him the adult female specklebelly goose was captured and collared near the same area in February.

The collared specklebelly goose soon flew north to nest east of Point Lay, Alaska, according to data transmitted via the collar, then migrated and returned to Cameron Parish.

“I’m out there all the time. I snap a lot of pictures,” Naquin said about using his camera with a 500mm lens plus a 1.4 TC. “I reached out to him and showed him that one. He’s the one who does the banding and collaring.”

Naquin told him the date, time and place. The biologist was able to match the data to that bird, which was flying 48 mph 580 feet above the marsh with the two other specks.

The veteran photographer said over the past two or three years he has photographed at least three specklebellies wearing collars each year.

“I think it’s real interesting, the banding and everything,” he said. “What else is interesting is how fast they get up in the jet stream.”

And they do rely on that jet stream. For example, the research waterfowl biologist told him about one specklebelly goose wearing a collar and hanging around Thornwell last year would take flight every evening, wing it to the Memphis area and return the next morning.

Naquin, a hard-core big game fisherman who strictly targets blue marlin out of Freshwater Bayou with his friend and veterinarian who owns a 50-plus foot long Sport Fisherman, has a biology background. He graduated with a wildlife management degree from McNeese State University.

The Lake Charles outdoorsman works as a business development manager for Hine Environmental Services. He also owns Bubba Naquin Photography LLC.

That same day he snapped the collared specklebelly goose was a special one in his career as a wildlife photographer, he said. On his personal Facebook page, he called it a “pretty epic day … that will forever be etched in my memory.”

Naquin said he was hunkered down in the marsh early to watch ducks move around. The action slowed, as it often does, until around 11 a.m. when Northern Harriers (raptors) came out in full force and bumped large groups of ducks on the pond, as they say.

Some of the ducks he saw get bumped were in a large group of gadwall, which stayed 50 feet from him for an estimated three hours, giving him beaucoup opportunities for spectacular photos of the species and a video. The photograph of the flying specklebellies led by the collared bird, formerly of Point Lay, Alaska, was the icing on the cake.