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…
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…
Too Much House, But Still Some Goose
In 1905, the Duwamish native Cheshiahud told The Seattle Times that he could no longer catch trout in Lake Union because “too much house now — they all gone.” 1. Seattle’s city-central lake was then known to the Duwamish as meman harsh, or “little lake,” surrounded by marshes and streams that fed both the lake…
From the Primordial Soup of Lake Union: American Coots
American Coots creep out of lakes like creatures of the bog, drawing up mud with their lobed toes as they march, single file, from the water to their feeding grounds. I once watched hundreds emerge, one by one, from the low-tide flats at San Leandro Marina in California, forming a line of black baubles from…
On Double-Banded Knee
Seattle crows are among the most famous of modern crows, owing to studies by John Marzluff which are featured in A Murder of Crows. This PBS Nature episode looks at Marzluff’s University of Washington (UW) research projects and the crows’ ability to recognize and remember human faces. I’ve seen a few UW-banded crows around town,…
Grackles & Apples …
… and grackles foraging across Nevada, exploiting urban food scraps. One of my favorite things about visiting southern climates is the summer night chatter of grackles … the cavatina that becomes the dissonant ensemble of grackle song when huge groups of the birds roost on urban plazas. These were winter-time grackles — Great-tailed Grackles roaming…
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…
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…
Kingfisher of the New Wave
photos ©ingridtaylar – email me for permissions Big-haired, 80s-style, Belted Kingfisher — on a windy day in Des Moines, Washington. Kingfishers are famously elusive when they see a lens pointed at them. This girl had good fishing prospects at the Des Moines Marina, so she put up with me for the sake of her prime…
