They sit suspended at the 18th weir, these scaled faces in the sockeye crowd. It’s the window to their water world, the portal from ocean to stream to lake, where their gills remember the taste of fresh after years in the salty sea — and where they lead — at least in part — by…
Sleeping With the Fishes
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen an Osprey napping with a fish in his talons. Last year, while observing the platform way across Seattle’s long-abused-but-recovering Duwamish River I watched a male Osprey land on a utility pole, clutching a half-eaten meal. A crow who’d been tailing the Osprey, landed alongside. The Osprey perched, adjusted…
An American Crow in Seattle
Maybe this photo resolves the American Crow/Northwestern Crow conundrum, once and for all: I suspect that any Pledge of Allegiance here is to Corvid Nation. Check out my post Crows on Cairns for a short discussion about what really constitutes “American” or “Northwestern” when it comes to corvids. Photographed at the Ballard Locks with the…
Sea Lions, Salmon & Seal Bombs
Note: Taking into account my title … no sea lions were harmed in the deployment of these “seal bombs.” There is, however, one dead salmon — a sea lion’s meal. I’m a relatively new witness to the conflicts in the Pacific Northwest between humans, sea lions, salmon, tribes, dams, fish ladders, and fisher people. As…
Welcome Home, Sockeye
I remember, I remember the hollowed nest in stream of stars the size of my eyes, I remember the swell of water, shape of light, celestial order to mirror the song of the river, the constellations … ~ From Celestial Navigation by Judith Roche I wrote about Judith Roche’s Salmon Suite poetry project at the…
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…
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…
Say It’s Only a Cormorant Moon …
… sailing over a cardboard sea. The sun came out and I raced down to the locks where, just a few days before, I’d seen the most perfect light on alighting herons. There’s a rookery that spans a ravine, the northern terminus of which is at the Ballard Locks. Several Great Blue Heron couples (Ardea…
