A European Starling preens in a communal bath on the Seattle waterfront as a juvenile Starling wanders into the splash zone. This bird bath was a series of long, narrow puddles at the edge of a bike path, visited at various times by Starlings, crows, finches and sparrows. Each time a cyclist buzzed by, the…
Space Rays
This photo was the serendipitous outcome of a flawed system. As much as I love my lightweight Manfrotto tripod, he cuts a moody figure in aluminum. Sometimes he’s steady and sometimes he sweeps the frame with creep and blur. In fairness to my Man Frotto, I was on a hill shooting the Space Needle and,…
A Sneeuwuil By Any Other Name
Sneeuwuil – Dutch Le Harfang des neiges – French Sniega puce – Latvian Snøugle – Norwegian Wabagano – Cree Shirofukuro – Japanese ~ Many thanks to Paul Asimow’s Snowy Owl pages for the above excerpt. We don’t yet know if it’s an echo year for Snowy Owls (the year after an irruption), but the Bubo…
On Little Cat Feet in Seattle
Carl Sandburg’s metaphor of fog creeping in “on little cat feet” over the harbor and sky is 21 words of descriptive perfection. But, it wasn’t this gentle, pitter-patter idea of fog that formed me. It was a more treacherous fog, the fog of the mire, the one shrouding fantastical and coal-black specters: The cloud was…
Waxwing Solo
I marked my winters in California by the return of the Cedar Waxwings. A few years ago this is how I would describe my seasonal transition: It starts with a whistle, but a whistle so faint it’s a whisper across the leaves. And then the sound of raindrops, but it’s not rain. It’s the patter…
A Makeshift Hummingbird Feeder Heater
Heating hummingbird feeders was a new thing for me after moving to Seattle. Here, Anna’s Hummingbirds stay through the winter, and although the cold months are relatively temperate, there are enough freezing mornings when nectar turns into slush or ice. My first go-round with enabling the local hummingbirds came our first winter with Mr. Hummingway….
It’s the Time of the Season … for Bird Noir
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…
Crows on Cairns
A group of young American Crows or Northwestern Crows (or American-Northwestern hybrid crows) foraged around these cairns along Seattle’s waterfront … like sentries in their own Norman towers. Click for Larger Image I don’t know if I’m looking at American or Northwestern Crows when I photograph these corvids in Seattle. The distinction for me —…
Draped in Kelp, Below by 8000 Feet
“Under the brine you won’t notice the dark Can stone and steel and horses heels Ever explain the way you feel? From Scapa Flow to Rotherhithe, I felt the lapping of an ebbing tide Oh the heavy water how it enfolds The salt, the spray, the gorgeous undertow Always, always, always the sea Brilliantine mortality.”…
Space Needle … by Chihuly
Chihuly glass was the canvas here … the afternoon sun, the painter. A stroll through glass-studded greens at Chihuly Garden and Glass (Seattle Center) exposed the Space Needle for the abstraction it wants to be. Throughout the garden, glass globes, spears and towers lie interspersed with botanical realness. What caught Hugh’s eye first, my imagination…
