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…
Texturizing a Storm
Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro I saw a crow yesterday, seized in midair by a gale. Just five feet from her tree, she paddled against the swell like a swimmer in an Endless Pool. I may not…
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….
Redondo Pelicans
On a last-minute work detour through Los Angeles (en route to the Northwest), I caught my favorite group of Redondo Beach pelicans waiting for fish scraps to drain into the harbor.
So Long, Lake Merritt
Lake Merritt was the first place I touched soil — or rather, marine sediment –after returning to the Bay Area from Los Angeles. We were perched above Oakland in a hotel room with just a sliver of a view, looking at the lake through what amounted to a castle loophole.
Miss Them Already: California Pelicans
We’re packing up for a move to the Northwest. It will be a year-plus endeavor — a relocation based on pragmatic considerations. I’ve been a Californian for the better part of 20 years, so the best way to embrace a transition across state lines is to see my future there as a photographic adventure. That…
Through the Lens of Glenn Nevill
A photograph’s true essence is visceral: How does it make you feel? What does the image inspire? It’s an impression that defies pixel peeping — where the mood and meaning of a photo can be crushed in a haze of digital noise, scrutinized at 100 percent.
Seeking Justice for a Sea Otter: It’s a Small World
I received a notice tonight from Defenders of Wildlife, asking for help in finding the killer of a young sea otter. The female otter was found along Morro Strand in June of this year — slain illegally, with the post-mortem revealing a shot to her head. In seeking additional information on this case, I landed…
Lancelot-Guinevere: The Case of the Castle Pigeon
Lancelot (no, Guinevere) — lost himself (no, herself) — along the coast of Scotland, where Picts and Druids and Earls and Scots laid claim to the medieval stones of her landing. Just north of these stones lie the crags and cliffs that offer sanctuary for pelagic birds, the calls of whom may have drawn her…
