An adult harbor seal lets out a big yawn on an early spring morning. It had a much higher perch than the younger seals and was able to enjoy the sun while they had to yield to the incoming tide.
Author: boolie
Wave Goodbye
After watching me from closer in, this harbor seal popped up further off in the gentle waves before finally swimming out of sight.
A Question for You Ellie
Ellie you say that hedgehog loves you as evidenced by how often it stays with you, but would it stay if you weren’t chomping on its head?
I’m sorry Ellie, I’m sorry! Of course hedgehog loves you, it does it does. Please don’t look at me with those sad puppy-dog eyes!
There’s my happy girl! That’s better … wait, Ellie, why is hedgehog running away?
A Change of Plans
On my journey to the redwoods, I expected to work mostly with the widest angle of my lens, highlighting the immense size and height of these ancient trees. However, my plans changed instantly the moment I stepped on the trails. I was struck both by the myriad colors and textures of the trees as well as their tenacity in hanging onto life despite fire and storm damage. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip and also one of my earliest, I stopped off for a quick hike around the Simpson-Reed Trail in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park before continuing on to my hotel in Crescent City.
The bark of this redwood was colored green by moss, while on the right of the picture where the bark has been stripped away, you can see the red pulp that gives the redwoods their name.
Emma vs. Sam
Emma sneaks down from the top of the cat tree to poke Sam from above and catches the little fellow unawares, but not helpless.
Dogs & Typography
I’ve been trying to write a description of Ellie to go along with this picture but it keeps coming out wrong. She’s obviously a black lab, but whenever I type it out she comes across as huge and gray with big floppy ears and large white tusks. I couldn’t figure out why, then it dawned on me: I was writing with an Ellie font!
Sign of Sanity
While visiting Olympic National Park in 2004, my wife and I escaped the crowds of the Hall of Mosses Trail and walked down the lovely Hoh River Trail where we met this Douglas’ squirrel. When you spend time photographing something as common as a squirrel at a place as special as the Hoh Rain Forest, some of the other tourists look at you with a mixture of curiosity and pity, as though you’re either slightly mad or slightly a moron.
Both of which might be true, but I enjoy photographing squirrels and do it no matter where I am, especially species like this one that I see less often. While the squirrels I see in my yard in the city are invaders from the east, the Douglas’ squirrel is one of the native tree squirrels in the Northwest.
Sam, Sleeping
I felt really rundown when I woke up this morning — I’m not a morning person but this was not something to be fixed with a hot shower, breakfast, and a shot of caffeine — so I’m taking my first sick day of the year. Sam took advantage of my unexpected presence to take a long catnap on my legs. Here my photogenic feline sleeps on the top of the cat tree in our dining room.
At Least One of Us is Sleeping
We arrived home late at night after a week-long trip to visit family in Mississippi and I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep. Whenever I return from a long absence, Scout wakes me up throughout the night in 30 to 60 minute intervals to pet her and reassure her.
Even though we had a friend pet sit while we were gone, Scout doesn’t like strangers or disruption in her life and stayed hidden for most of the week. That first night back, however, she let me sleep more than I expected. She made up for it the next couple of nights and by the weekend I was pretty worn out. After she was satisfied that life was back to normal, she returned to her favorite haunts like the window seat and slept a peaceful sleep.
Sunset on the Rocks
When I visited Mount Rainier National Park in the fall of 2008, I saw more pikas on the the Pinnacle Peak Trail than I’d ever seen on a single trail before. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say I saw more pikas on that hike than I had seen in my entire life until then. They weren’t all close to the trail, the talus fields are extensive and often lead far from the trail, but some of them were close enough for pictures, including this pika that popped out of a rock wall near sunset.
Boolie 