If you work with or care about animals, the nonhuman ones, eventually, someone will say something like, “shouldn’t you care more about what happens to people?” That question doesn’t faze me anymore. Given our predominantly anthropocentric world view, I’d actually be surprised if people didn’t ask it. I have plenty of answers for why it’s…
Thursday on the Beach With Brant
On the surface, Brant Geese — in this case, Pacific Brant or Black Brant or Branta bernicla — are a marvel to behold. That’s but a superficial observation. There’s a lot more to a Brant than her aesthetic, but let’s face it, aesthetics form our first impressions. Clustered together like Tribbles, they call out in…
Meanwhile … Back at the Cell Tower
When I last left the Cell Tower Osprey, they were in an apparent tussle over their nesting site. Photographically speaking, I chose the wrong time for this week’s visit. But, I was in the neighborhood just after dawn and figured I’d drop in for a few minutes. The only place to photograph this tower is…
A Closer Look … for Birds in Trouble
This post contains one image of a long-deceased gull, just FYI. You’d think I would have learned my lesson last year, with the dead gull I found wrapped around a deterrent wire on a nearby warehouse … or the gulls we untangled last fall from a fish-pen net. But, in fairness, this location was difficult…
Steelhead Poetry on the 18th Weir
This is a postscript to my previous notes on Steelhead Youth. Every year, the audio system in the fish ladder viewing area (Ballard Locks) broadcasts a series of oral histories, each relating to a particular cycle of salmon migration. Right now in April, when you press the red button, you’ll hear about the juvenile steelhead…
Steelhead Youth
Puget Sound steelhead travel through the Ballard Locks at a fraction of their glory-day numbers. According to this post at the Friends of the Ballard Locks blog, two to three thousand steelhead used to migrate through the locks. Now, if visitors see just one steelhead looking back at them through the window, they’re lucky. A…
Great Blue Squiggles
I guess it’s Composite Week, since this is my second Photoshop posting in a few days. We saw this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) fishing for sculpin (mostly) in a nearby Seattle marina. I’m always drawn to reflections of boat masts in smooth or rippled water, and I loved the way these particular reflections swirled…
Arc of the Kingfisher
I have a few terabytes of backlogged photos I’ve never posted — many of which should probably stay archived. But, I thought for sure I’d published this one. When I searched my blog archives, it appears this image never touched the pages of The Quark. This is a banner I created last year of a…
Cool & Totipalmate
It begins with a twig in the bill and the throaty croak of the swamp. They’re creatures of the marshes, the Great Blues, now on ascent to a season in the trees where nests incubate eggs, and where clumsy young legs will soon dawdle on branches until they get their wings. They call this place…
Bird Photography Outtakes
Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) in Seattle, Washington. Okay, I’m pretty careful when I’m photographing around roosts. And, cormorants give you plenty of warning with all of the guano splatters below their perches. In fact, I can’t think of the last time I got hit by a big bird … so, it’s funny that on the…
