I originally named this portrait “Standing Room Only.” I’d never seen a Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) creep chest-high into a pool — then just stand there forever like a Japanese snow monkey. This pose made me laugh as I watched the heron soak up the swirls of his own private day spa. One of my…
The Legend of the White Gallopavo
The color white represents catharsis in alchemy. It’s the point at which a blackened substance, through heat and reactivity, develops a white crust and then puffs into a cloud inside the alchemist’s flask. It’s the stage at which future possibilities become apparent as a material is transformed from one to the other. And it’s symbolized…
Re-Capturing the Clapper Rail
The show Bird Note just posted an audio piece on California Clapper Rails in San Francisco Bay. Bird Note covers an eclectic array of bird stories, from behavioral questions to ecological issues. The stories are short audio bits with related blog posts and resources to flesh out the subject matter. As an adjunct to the Clapper…
Bird Verse: Eastern Gods
They are eastern gods — they meditate. (Yes they are.) “The Owls” by Charles Baudelaire (translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay) The owls that roost in the black yew Along one limb in solemn state, And with a red eye look you through, Are eastern gods; they meditate. No feather stirs on them, not one,…
Studies in Godwit
Every so often, I get a request for ‘derivative works’ permission — usually from a wildlife artist who wants to use a photo as the foundation for a painting or print. I particularly love it when the work is used to benefit an animal cause … like this painting of a Brown Pelican I photographed…
Parrots Directing Traffic
As my life in California drifts farther behind me, I’m given to fits of sentimentality … especially for the wildlife and wilderness we left behind. Among my emotional favorites are the wild parrots of San Francisco — actually, Red-masked Parakeets or Cherry-headed Conures. These are the celebrity birds featured in Mark Bittner’s The Wild Parrots…
Best 2011 Pics … or Favorite Pics of 2011?
A 12/31/11 Edit: HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! Wishing you a beautiful start to 2012! Every year, for five years now, Jim Goldstein at the JMG-Galleries Blog invites photographers to participate in his “Best Photos” project. Bloggers post about their top five or ten images from that year, then send the link to Jim who compiles…
The Turkeys I’ve [Almost] Known
This post is a tribute to the wild turkeys who walk among us. Every year, Hugh and I Adopt a Turkey from Farm Sanctuary. And every year, I try to somehow commemorate the awesomeness of the wild turkeys I’ve been privileged to be among and photograph. The timing of this new episode from Nature on…
The Crow Who Changed My Life
My thanks to Lyanda Lynn Haupt for the book that reminded me to honor my original inspiration: the crow. It’s because of a crow that I became who I am. My mother arrived home one day with a juvenile crow in a box. I was just a kid, fourteen or so. Mom was dropping my…
A Budding Amphipodologist
Chris Anderson said it back in 2004: The Internet has a long tail . . . so long, in fact, that a person can leap from being a writer one day, to a budding amphipodologist the next. This may not be the anecdote Anderson had in mind when he wrote about the long tail….
