Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
The new year is kicking off with a Trixie-approved Oregon rain here in the desert. I fell in love with the rain when we lived in the Pacific Northwest and would specifically go out to photograph in it. On this day it rained on and off but for a little while it was absolutely chucking it down. These photos of a cinnamon teal and northern shoveler were taken 18 seconds apart as they fed in Long Lake.
📷: Canon 7D II | Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x III
🗓️: December 23, 2015
A pied-billed grebe casts an eye upwards, with the biggest threat in the skies being the bald eagles whose numbers rose in winter along with the returning waterfowl. The biggest threat to its peace were the rafts of coots who moved about the slough.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x III
🗓️: December 29, 2011
I’ve been editing a lot of old pictures recently which has let me revisit my former haunts as well. I updated the color version of this young great blue heron which has been online for a long while, but also liked a black-and-white treatment which highlights the markings on its long beak.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM
🗓️: January 1, 2011
A tranquil scene as a cinnamon teal sleeps on a rainy day at Ridgefield. I remember spending long hours on the auto tour, often sitting in a spot like Long Lake and watching to see what came by, but was surprised when looking back at my journals to see some rainy days I’d stay the entire day. You’d think, given I’m the one living it, I’d be better at remembering the details of my life.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm f/4 + 1.4x
🗓️: June 6, 2010
Another charm of the auto tour was what I called “Hawks on a Stick”, the juvenile redtails who’d perch on the signs around the big meadow and let you watch them up close. I’d wait until there was no traffic coming, put the teleconverter & extensions tubes on my biggest telephoto, then drive up and mostly watch their backs as they looked into the meadow for voles.
If they turned their heads, with such a good look at the beak I was reminded of the Simpsons episode where Lisa visits the dentist and he holds up a gruesome device and says “this happy little fellow is the gouger”.
I was re-editing some photos to go along with a saguaro post and realized this bittern image wasn’t even online. The auto tour at Ridgefield was a magical place, you could shut your car off and sit in the rain and the cold and the wildlife would come right up to you.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm f/4 + 1.4X
🗓️: January 4, 2013
These pictures remind me of spring as I so loved sitting beside a lush meadow and listening to the savannah sparrows sing. They were taken in the fall though, the green backdrop courtesy of the wonderland that is the Pacific Northwest.
📷: Sony A6500 | Canon 500mm | Canon 1.4X
🗓️: October 1, 2017
Bear and I saw a coyote on a neighborhood walk recently, they’re not uncommon but I hear them more than I see them, especially at night when I like to go out back and look at the stars and listen to the quiet. I’ve never seen one when I had an appropriate camera with me however, all part of their cunning plans. That wasn’t the case at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge though where I saw them many times hunting in the meadows and marshes along the auto tour.
📷: Canon 20D | Canon 100-400mm
🗓️: May 29, 2005
As arctic conditions grip the desert with overnight lows in the 40’s and 50’s, a throwback to a cold New Year’s Day in 2011 when I was watching a bittern work a frozen channel on the auto tour at Ridgefield. Unfortunately for the vole living its best life in the tall grasses, a bittern neither knocks nor cares if you answer. In some ways they remind me of roadrunners here in the desert, both relentless hunters with diverse palettes relying on surprise, the bitterns via stealth, roadrunners via speed.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 100-400mm
🗓️: January 1, 2011
Another one for the “I Take It You Trust Me” collection, three eyes in the back of the head of a male kestrel. Taken on the auto tour at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, I loved how close you could watch the animals without disturbing them, this little falcon was cleaning his feathers. I see kestrels more often in the desert surprisingly enough but I’ll never see them this close again. Leastwise not until I’m 50 feet tall, I’m doing my stretches but no progress to report.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm | Canon 1.4X
Date: January 2, 2011
Boolie 