Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
The robin is one of the most familiar birds in the United States and I had a fondness for them growing up, partly because they were easy to see in the many trees around our house and partly because they were the state bird of my state at the time, Michigan. I love photographing them but funnily enough don’t see them that often in the places I visit most. This male was feeding on the ground on a rainy winter afternoon at my favorite wildlife refuge and was the last shot I took on the day.
This coyote was hunting along the edge of Rest Lake with another coyote on a winter afternoon. I saw them on multiple occasions, moving about the refuge together, this one had matted fur under its neck and was easy to recognize.
A red-winged blackbird preens his red feathers.
After the arrival of Trixie, Boo decided it was time he was moving on and packaged himself for transport.
I took this with my little Canon mirrorless camera but the light levels were so low that the image quality suffered. I really enjoy the concept of mirrorless cameras and would like to use them for most of my non-wildlife photography, but it will mean moving away from Canon for the first time ever as they are deliberately (and perhaps understandably) holding back on designing good ones until the market matures. Sony has some full-frame models that would have better handled this scene, if I had to choose today I’d probably go that route, but the expense of buying new lenses is holding me back at the moment.
The wildlife refuges near me are converted farmland and to my eye this is most evident at the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge in Corvallis, Oregon. There are several barns around the property, such as this one near the old fruit orchard, and the headquarters is in the old pioneer house. Or at least it was, I can’t say for sure if it still is today. We used to live near Salem and driving to Finley was reasonable, but since we moved to Portland over a decade ago it would now be a two hour drive (four hours round trip). So I haven’t been in many years, but perhaps I should make the pilgrimage one day to get reacquainted.
I’ve never put this picture of Scout online before as it’s just a simple snapshot from when she was around one year old, but I was editing it today and my eyes filled with tears and I had to put it aside for a while. It caught me off guard, as while I will go to my grave missing her, she died two years ago and usually by now the sense of loss isn’t quite so pointed. Besides I’ve edited other pictures of her recently with only the expected dull ache of distant loss.
I suppose it has as much to do with Emma as Scout as I’ve been thinking a lot about her recently. Grieving for her got interrupted with the health problems the other pets had and as needs must, we focused on the sick more than the dead. They were both far too young when they died, especially Em, and while we tried everything to save them, ultimately their fates were out of our hands.
The silver lining, of course, in outliving our pets is that as sorry as I am to have lost Scout and Emma, I’m happy to have welcomed Boo and Trixie into our home. Only I hope I won’t grieve for their loss for many years to come.
Winters in Oregon’s Willamette Valley are generally cool, not cold, and more wet from rain than white from snow. This allows many plants to stay green throughout the winter, with my favorite green that of moss which almost glows in the soft overcast light. This picture from 2002 is from the forested section of Baskett Butte, where moss covered the branches that had fallen to the forest floor.
I rarely get to see rough-legged hawks but it’s such a treat every time I do, I love their coloration. I think this one from 2004 may be a juvenile, four years later I got to see an adult on several occasions and wondered if it was the same bird. Sadly I haven’t gotten a good look at once since.
A cold snap at the end of the year meant the new year dawned to frost and ice. I started New Year’s morning the way I had New Year’s Eve, watching egrets and herons at Ridgefield. I had arrived before the sun and had been sitting watching this heron when I was struck by how the rising sun was already illuminating the far side of the marsh. Within minutes it would crest the hill and bring us the warmth of its light as well.
As I watched the animals that morning I knew our sweet little cat Emma was in a fight for her life but I didn’t know we only had a week left together. And of course I couldn’t know that on this day, or perhaps a day or two before, a little kitten was being rescued far away in southern Oregon, and that a few weeks later she’d be transferred to Portland and welcomed into our home, bringing us light at the end of a dark and depressing month.
I love photographing coots, one of the most commonly seen birds at Ridgefield, as I find it fascinating how they do many of the things that diving ducks do yet their bodies differ in many ways. I was shocked the first time I saw their almost comically large feet and was surprised to see that they aren’t webbed like a duck. We had a cold snap to start the year and some of the smaller ponds froze over, leaving the coots a bit exposed as their best defense against an aerial eagle attack is to dive under the water.
Boolie 