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Off the Clock

She has an eye for nature

This employee takes photos of flora and fauna in their element

A woman points a camera at the viewer
Mary Hulshouser, a Fort Worth, TX, retention operations specialist for USPS and a photographer

My name is Mary Hulshouser and I’m a USPS retention operations specialist based in Fort Worth, TX.

When I’m not working, you can find me outside — behind a lens, taking photographs of nature.

I’ve always had a camera, but it was in the spring of 2022 that I started getting serious about nature photography. I bought a really nice camera, then a couple of lenses, then a big zoom lens.

The key to taking good photos is practice and patience.

I never thought I would have the patience like I do now. I always hated driving, but now I will travel for hours to find a good shot.

Then you sit there for three hours, and you could take 200 pictures, and you might have four or five that pop out at you.

I went to Sedona, AZ, last year for a few days and I got some shots of a great horned owl that had nested in a cactus. She was brooding on eggs.

I decided to go back there for vacation this year. I was up at 4 a.m. every day and got another photo of the owl — this time with one of the babies.

I’ll look at the photos that I took when I first started and think I could have done better. I’m sure in another three years, I’ll look back at today’s pictures and think the same. It’s a learning process.

I won first place at the Texas State Fair last year for a photo of a pair of great egrets in their mating plumage, and there’s a Texas bank that runs contests that I’ve won for a couple of years. One of my photos was also chosen for the Fort Worth Report’s monthly photo contest, and I was recently contacted by BirdNote requesting one of my photos to be included in their 2026 calendar.

But my dream is to have my photos on postage stamps one day.

“Off the Clock,” a column on Postal Service employees and their after-hours pursuits, appears regularly in Link.

Two yellow baby geese stand near blue water
“I spent about an hour with these baby Canada geese,” Hulshouser said of this photo she took in Scottsdale, AZ. “They were just precious to watch as they made their way around the lake.”
A bee flies near a butterfly perched on a flower
“It is always nice when you can capture a bonus in your photo. This bee photobombed my picture of a butterfly,” Hulshouser said. The photo was taken in the Dallas area.
A small hummingbird sits perched on the nose of a large metal bird decoration hanging in a garden
“I was at the Texas Discovery Gardens when this hummingbird landed on the arch over a walkway. He is in the same pose as the yard art hanging from the archway,” Hulshouser said.
An owl and a baby owl are perched near cacti
“I went to Scottsdale, Arizona, specifically to see this mama and hoped to see an owlet. I was really excited when I saw them and spent a couple mornings at the nest site,” Hulshouser said.
A bird with a blue head, red body and yellow and green wings sits in a green leafy tree
Painted buntings are “one of my favorite birds and I always look forward to their return in the spring. The mature males are so vibrant and have such a pretty song,” Hulshouser said. The photo was taken in Sherman, TX.
Two white egrets bend their necks against a green background
“These were taken at a rookery here in downtown Dallas in a very unlikely location. These two with their breeding colors and feather displays were building up their nest readying for eggs and baby egrets,” Hulshouser said.

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