Tucker isn’t really interested in the water. But, he spends his working days on a boat, sniffing out orca scat in the breezes of the Salish Sea. He’s a labrador mix, trained as part of the Conservation Canine program — at the University of Washington’s Center For Conservation Biology. Tucker’s ambivalence about water actually makes…
If Orcas Could Buy Sofas …
Orcas can’t, of course, pick out sofas. But if they could, they would tell you that their survival may depend on the product and furniture choices we make — and the industries we support in the process. The orcas of the Salish Sea, who regularly cross the international boundary between Washington State and British Columbia,…
Barring the Hat
My first wild encounter with a Barred Owl in Seattle culminated in the photo below. Based on this experience, my advice to children in raptor territory is: avoid wearing plush toy animals on your backpack as the dusk hunting hour approaches. A boy was walking along a wooded path with his mother, a fuzzy toy…
Teaching the Kids to Forage
Juvenile gulls are as determined to get free food from their parents– as their parents are to wean them from the freebies. I’ve seen many adult gulls swimming or flapping away from their begging youngsters, forcing the juvies to forage on their own. I haven’t often watched a parent gull patiently teach the babies to…
If a Heron Had Written “Your Song” …
Hugh and I watched two herons dance around the idea of landing on this roof, skirting the aerial chaos of gulls along Alki Beach. One finally planted its feet on the A-frame, while the other lurked in a tree above. Looking at the pic, Hugh started singing the lyric from Elton John’s Your Song ……
Climbing the [Salmon] Ladder to Success
Images taken at Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, aka Ballard Locks, in Seattle Washington. Summer means salmon runs at the Ballard Locks fish ladder . . . twenty-one watery steps from Puget Sound, to the ship canal, to the fresh water spawning grounds where the returning salmon were born. Salmon are a miracle of navigational skills,…
Things I’d Never Seen ….
As little as I’ve been out in the field with my camera lately (relative to how it used to be), I’ve had a disproportionate number of firsts in terms of wildlife viewings. Some of it is my change of environment and the newness of Seattle and its wild offspring. And some of it is, well…
And Osprey Makes Two
So far, that’s all I’ve seen at this nesting site . . . two diligent Osprey, bringing each other fish and taking turns sitting. The structure of the cell phone tower obscures the interior of the nest, so I see only what happens on the rafters outside. To date, it’s been just a male and…
Eagle & Crow
There’s no lack of courage among the black birds. (Exhibit B: the eagle/crow face off I photographed last October.) I joke that Bald Eagles in Seattle are never without a personal entourage, usually crows and gulls. In this particular altercation, a Red-winged Blackbird joined the squadron as the eagle flew over Union Bay Natural Area…
The Turns of Terns
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…
