I’ve described terns, with their distinct calls, as aerial barflies with too much whiskey and smoke on the voice box. Each tern is raspy in its own way, and Caspian Terns have a sharp croak that pierces the air over my balcony. They’re huddled on a warehouse rooftop one minute, hundreds of them, blurred by…
Anthropomorphizing a Caspian-Peregrine Tussle
I’ve been grabbing Seattle’s ever-so-fleeting sun breaks to photograph a group of Caspian Terns who fish every evening on Puget Sound. I’ll post those shots soon. As I was packing up my tripod tonight, I saw the telltale movement and wing shape of a Peregrine overhead. She was riding the thermals up and out of…
Spring Spiderlings
I saw what looked like a clump of mud sticking to the wall outside my kitchen window. It looked, at first, like the remnant of a Cliff Swallow nest . . . the muddy scars I saw frequently in the Bay Area — the artifacts of their once viable mud mortar homes. But some part…
The One I Couldn’t Help
It was one of those precious sunny days in the midst of Seattle downpours. A Flickr friend of mine told me about a tugboat race on Elliott Bay, so I thought I’d walk the Terminal 91 bike path to the water. The “path” is an industrial slog — a cement slough leading to Puget Sound,…
Les Mouettes Aimes Les Petits Pains
photos ©ingridtaylar – email me for permissions mouette = from Middle French mouette = from Old French moette = diminutive of Old French maoe (Anglo-Norman mave, mauve) = from Old English mǣw (“seagull”) = from Proto-Germanic *maihwaz, *maiwaz (“seagull”) Someone challenged these gulls with leftovers from the patisserie. If a gull can swallow a starfish,…
Anatomy of a Cormorant Landing
Double-crested Cormorant – Phalacrocorax auritus. Photographed with my Olympus E-3 and Zuiko 70-300mm. The birds were silhouetted in late afternoon light, high ISO 1000, some post-processing NR to compensate for the darker conditions.. I shot this series along the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Seattle. If you’ve watched Double-crested Cormorants [literally] coming home to roost,…
A Great Blue Yawn
I watched this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) preening and relaxing for a half hour or so. At the very end of our “visit,” he yawned and held the pose for just a few seconds. I snapped this shot. A bird yawn always takes me back to the chaotic year of looking after two rescued…
The Maw
Two of a huge group of gulls, collecting on a duck pond during a fierce, Seattle wind storm.
Bald Eagle in the Backyard
This is a huge bonus of living in Seattle: the urban and suburban wildlife includes a multitude of Bald Eagles. This morning, Hugh went into our friends’ garden to fill up their bird feeder — a chore we both kind of enjoy. A huge contingent of birds descends right when our boots leave the scene…
I Preen, Therefore I Am
If you know birds, you know that preening isn’t cosmetic fluff. It’s a meticulous cleaning and placement of the bird’s survival gear: feathers. Feathers need to be pristine for flight and for insulation. During oil spills, the analogy used about feathers is that a spot of oil on a bird’s plumage is like a hole…
