A Good Year

I knew it was going to be a good year for coyotes.

During a two week stretch in mid-to-late January, I saw a coyote pair frequently and took some of my best coyote pictures ever. But not long after I jammed up my ankle and took a two month sabbatical from Ridgefield. Even after the ankle healed, I’ve only been back to Ridgefield three times this spring with not a coyote picture to show for it. While it’s been an extremely wet spring here in the Northwest, many of the weekends have been sunny. The refuge gates are locked until well after sunrise and before sunset at this time of year, so the best light on sunny days is lost. And sunny days bring out the crowds, so I prefer to stay home and get in some extra hedgehogging.

I did see a young coyote on my visit a week ago. It was so close that getting a picture was going to be difficult from my angle without risking spooking it, so I just pulled over and watched as it hunted beside the road. But I saw a Subaru coming up quickly down the road, a car I recognized since we have one just like it. I knew they had seen the young coyote, and I also knew what was going to happen next. The coyote watched them approach and as they got on the brakes on the gravel road, the coyote bolted at the sound.

In the real world they weren’t going fast at all, just Ridgefield fast, and even a tolerant coyote won’t tolerate that.

This adult is one of the pair that I watched with such success in January, it’s coat drenched on a wonderfully wet winter’s day. And I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about cars anymore, but this is why I’ve been on the hunt for a quiet car. When I’ve worked to earn an animal’s trust, the sound of the gas engine firing up feels like a betrayal of that trust.

Disturbance

This young bald eagle was perched on a tree overlooking Canvasback Lake, watching the waterfowl below, when it suddenly took to the skies. Normally I would have liked more empty sky in the upper left corner of the picture but the eagle bolted with no warning, disturbed by the sharp retort of a shotgun blast, so I had no time to properly compose the shot. The birds aren’t normally so perturbed by the blasts, but I do prefer the off-days during duck hunting season, not because I have a problem with hunting per se but because I prefer the quiet.

WWDC

We’re all waiting on pins and needles here to see what Apple announces on Monday at their Worldwide Developer’s Conference. We’re so anxious we can barely sleep! Well maybe not all of us. And in fact this picture of Lady Em was taken last summer as she tried to beat the heat by catnapping on the glass table on our porch as she and I enjoyed a nice day in Portland.

Not As Easy As It Looks

I’ve hoped to photograph pied-billed grebe chicks each spring, as their fantastic faces look nothing like the birds they will become, but this is the first year I’ve had the chance. The two parents had a handful of chicks and were busy feeding them, catching a variety of underwater creatures and feeding them to the hungry chicks. It seemed to me the adults were killing their prey before handing it off to the youngsters, but even so the chicks often dropped their food into the water as they learned to move items about in their bills. The adult was always nearby if necessary to retrieve the food, but in this case the chick was able to pluck it from the water on its own.

The List

I suppose I should mention that, after all the car talk, I’ve decided to wait until at least the fall before replacing either our Civic or our Outback, and maybe not even then. But I did want to have a list of potential candidates in mind in case something bad happened to either car and we had to replace them on short notice.

Replacing the Subaru isn’t so challenging as there are only a handful of cars I would consider, with another Outback at the top of the list. Choosing a replacement for the Civic isn’t so easy since there are so many potential candidates. So I created a mental list of all the cars that have interested me, divided up into four tiers with my favorites at the top, cars that I think I could buy almost sight unseen and be happy with, moving down to cars I like but don’t think I would buy.

The list has been fluid, with my head shoving cars down the list and my heart shoving them back up, but it has started to coalesce. When the time comes, a few test drives should sort things out for good, but here’s where we are for now:

The Favorites

Chevrolet Sonic
Subaru Impreza

The Challengers

Honda Fit Sport
Lexus CT 200h
Mazda 3
Toyota Prius c

The Longshots

Chevrolet Volt
Ford Focus
Honda CR-Z
Toyota Prius Plug-in
Volkswagen Golf TDI
Volvo C30

The Probably Nots

Ferrari 458 Italia
Hyundai Veloster
Scion iQ

There are a few vehicles coming out this fall that should shake up the list. The Subaru Crosstrek (shown at the top of the post) is the most intriguing, as it is the only car that could replace either the Civic or the Outback. Both the Subaru and Hyundai have been on sale for a while in Europe, while I think the Fords have been on sale there in regular form but not as hybrids.

The Up-and-Comers

Ford C-MAX Energi
Ford C-MAX Hybrid
Hyundai Elantra GT
Subaru XV Crosstrek

If the Crosstrek were available today, it’d probably be in our driveway, but we’ll see how the competition stacks up in the fall. And I promise that’s enough car talk for a while.

An Almost Car for the Ages

I’m at that age where I should be having a mid-life crisis, so in addition to my practical little hatchbacks I should be looking at a mid-life crisis car. My choice would be the same as any other man’s — a Volvo.

Ahem.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Volvos although I don’t know why. I’ve never owned one, and while we had one while I was a kid, we sold it before I was of driving age. But I’d occasionally see a beautiful little Volvo hatchback as I drove to work, and was vexed enough to want to know more, yet I never could get a good look at its nameplate. I searched Volvo’s website for hatchbacks but nothing came up, and even looked for it at the auto show in January but didn’t see it. Perhaps we just missed it at the end of a long day. But I discovered one in the neighborhood while walking Ellie and finally identified my mysterious beauty — the Volvo C30.

Volvo doesn’t call it a hatchback, even though it has a hatch in the back, but never mind. It’s not only still being made, it’s for sale here in the States and could be mine for the asking. Both inside and out I think the C30 is one of the prettiest cars on the road, at any price, and it’s quick but not at all fuel-efficient. So I think it qualifies as a mid-life crisis car, just with a Boolish twist. Not a sports car, but nevertheless a car for my heart and not my head.

But even that’s not quite true. This along with the Lexus CT would be two of the best cars for my commute, and would be comfortable for those winter and spring days at Ridgefield when I sit in the car for hour after hour, waiting for those lucky moments like this bald eagle at Long Lake. I’ve been taking our Civic to the refuge the past couple of months, mostly to see if I could tolerate a stick shift at the refuge, but I was caught off guard but how much less comfortable I was by the end of the day in the Civic compared to our Subaru. We’ve had both cars for about 12 years so it’s not as if they are new to me, but I guess I just haven’t spent long days in the Civic before.

If the C30 was available in all-wheel drive, I think my head would follow my heart on this one, but sadly it is not. Rumor has it the C30 is being discontinued in any event, so I suppose it’s a moot point.

Jedi Mind Tricks

When I started reorganizing my office, I moved out an old printer stand that the cats used to sit on when they watched the birds in our garden, so to make amends I moved the cat tree into my office by the window. It towers above my chair so I now spend my days under the intense gaze of my very own gargoyle.

Your mind tricks will not work on me little one!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have the irresistible urge to dump a bagful of salmon treats all over my floor for no apparent reason.

Uh Oh

I have a long-standing yet unfulfilled desire for a small camera. Several cameras that came out within the past couple of years have piqued my interest, but none has been quite what I’m looking for, so apart from the occasional temptation of a really big sale I’ve found it pretty easy to stand my ground.

But I just went a little weak in the knees.

Sony announced the DSC-RX100, a little pocket camera that packs a much larger sensor than others in its class (good for the low light shooting I prefer), yet is also quick to operate. I’ve never bought a camera that wasn’t made by Canon — which isn’t as dramatic as it sounds, both because I haven’t bought a lot of cameras and because all but one have been SLR’s, where I buy Canon bodies because I have Canon lenses — but if it is as good in the hand as it looks on paper, this little Sony will be the first.

Doesn’t ship for another month or so, and something of this quality isn’t cheap, but oh my …

Make a Joyful Noise

But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy.
Psalm 5:11

The bullfrogs were singing in rare form at the refuge this weekend. Breeding season was in full swing and the males were croaking and wrestling and leapfrogging each other, and a few lucky ones were mating with the females. They were in a channel beside Bull Lake so I had to shoot down on them between the tall grass. Between a gentle breeze that constantly moved the grass about and my temporary bout of photographic incompetence, it took me a while to settle in and find my way.

This male was one of my favorites. I wanted to catch the ripples made by his croaking but was a bit surprised that my favorite view of the ripples is before his throat fully expands. The problem was that by the time his throat is fully extended, the ripples interfered with each other as they bounced off his rear legs, breaking up the pattern.

Beautiful creature, this one. Beautiful.

In This Quiet Hush

A cinnamon teal pair settles in as the light fades at the end of the day. A simple but peaceful picture, one of my favorites from this past winter.