Without even a wisp of autumn air, Seattle dipped from summer to storm, from a prolonged swelter to a premature December gray, leaving me damp and unrequited. In eighty days without droplets and dew, the Emerald city turned topaz and so dry that even the pigeons, normally preening under nimbostratus showers, looked haggard for the…
Steam as Bird Backdrop
My affection for wildlife in urban and industrial settings brings me the subject of steam. There are obviously a lot of distracting elements in urban photography. Although I lean toward a photojournalistic style of realism when I encounter them, I also find it challenging to show the grit of these scenes while retaining some aesthetic…
Flying Into a Half Moon
It’s thematically appropriate that our move to Seattle — Jet City — inspired my first aircraft-on-moon shots. I’d just photographed the Wolf Moon at the Space Needle … layering two exposures to bring the moon into focus. On the ride into the city, I then noticed that this winter whopper of a moon tracked behind…
What We Are …
The post title derives from a Flickr friend who wrote this comment below my photo: “A sobering reminder of what we are . . .” I will add that what we are doesn’t necessarily foretell what we become. 🙂 Against a scrim of Northwestern mist, the barge SeaLink Rigger chugs toward a scrap metal yard…
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…
Moon Roost
click for larger image Every night, they dart under the highway bridge, buzzing boaters as their wings slice the air above the channel. Cormorants, nature’s flying and diving machines, are sleek and malleable to the point of being reptilian. Everything about the cormorant says speed … everything except parking it at the roost. As branches…
Pelagic Family, On the Rocks
We passed this Pelagic Cormorant family (Phalacrocorax pelagicus) on one of the few isolated nesting spots near Vancouver Island (British Columbia). We were told that in the 1990s, rampant shoreline development eliminated important habitat for the cormorants. This rock island was one of a few ecological reserves the B.C. government set aside for the cormorants’…
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,…
Mainmastmen
Double-crested Cormorants, with their totipalmate feet, gripping the ropes of a mast at Lake Union’s Center for Wooden Boats.
