Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge – Page 2

Who Can It Be Knocking At My Door?

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

Testing the Ice

The water at Ridgefield didn’t freeze very often but I loved being there when it did, this raccoon was using its newfound capability of walking on water to move about Bower Slough. When it reached the edge where the water hadn’t frozen, after testing the ice it backed up and scrambled up the embankment and continued its hunt on dry land.

📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm f/4
Date: January 2, 2011

Ol’ Three Eyes

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

Meadow Stare

Some more pictures from 2013, this time of a female northern harrier hunting for Townsend’s voles in the big meadow at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge.

A Different Life

While editing old photos like this male bufflehead at Rest Lake in 2013, I was struck by how different my photography life is now compared to then. I took this with my monstrous Canon 500mm super-telephoto, on Ridgefield’s auto tour the size and weight weren’t an issue and I loved how it magnified even the dinky divers and other small creatures. Back then it was my most used lens but I’ve rarely used it since moving to Arizona, I hike with it on occasion where I have a specific target in mind but for most hikes I stick with my beloved and much lighter Sony 100-400mm.

I’ll be upgrading my telephoto system soon since it’s the only part of my gear that can’t do focus bracketing, the big Canon will get traded in once I decide if I should stick with Sony or go all-in with Nikon. I bought it in 2006 for $5500, a heart-stopping price at the time but I got my money’s worth out of this one.

Shakespeare in the Park

“To be, or not to be, that is the question”

“Now let me think. Did I leave the stove on? Probably not as I don’t own a stove. Still, you can’t be too careful.”

“O say can you see …”

Long and Fading

At the start of 2011, after taking the previous picture at Horse Lake I moved to adjacent Long Lake, the pink skies fading in intensity despite the trivially short drive. Though side-by-side the differing natures of the lakes meant some wildlife preferred one to the other. Dead snags stood upright across the narrow width of the lake with many of their fallen brethren floating nearby. It was my favorite spot for close looks of teal and grebes and mergansers, with egrets and herons and bitterns hunting the shallows. In the warmer months turtles sunned on the logs, one of the few reptiles in the area. Mammals also made an appearance though not as often: otters fishing, raccoons and coyotes prowling the edges, deer up on the banks. Nutria too but then they were everywhere.

The tallest snag was near the road out-of-frame to the right, one day to my astonishment an adult bald eagle perched there almost right above me. Swallows would stop to rest as they hunted the skies above the lake, while below blackbirds and sparrows searched the marshy shores for insects to feed their young. The tall snag on the left was a favorite spot for kingfishers, as well as taller ones on the right, it was my favorite place to watch them as they dove down from the heights and plunged into the water after small fish.

But time took its toll on the former trees and one by one they began to fall, until on a visit four years later I sadly noted in my journal they were all gone. On a later visit it seemed more of a marshy meadow than a lake though perhaps in the rainy season it would fill up again. I wondered what animals would now call it home but it was not for me to know, change wasn’t just coming to the lake.

The Pink Horse

One of my favorite places at Ridgefield was Horse Lake, an innocuous seasonal pond at the start of the auto tour. To the left and right of this image grew clumps of tall grasses where bitterns and herons and egrets hunted. Dabblers like teal and pintails and wigeon congregated further left and right. In this open spot if there wasn’t much road traffic, and if you were patient enough, shy divers like scaup and bufflehead swam up to feed. The not-so-shy coots were always around, and often too the skies filled with cackling geese who wintered at the refuge in large numbers.

And once, and only once during my many visits, sunrise lit the skies a vibrant pink that reflected off the frozen pond. My favorite time to visit was on rainy days where you had to take it on faith the sun had risen, towels strewn round the Subaru as I listened to the pitter-patter of raindrops and the chitter-chatter of ducks. Because it was the start of the auto tour, there could be too much traffic for my liking on sunny days, and during the winter about every other day brought duck hunters and volleys of shotgun blasts. But in memory it can always be as peaceful as it was on this day and many others besides, as morning came to my little Horse.

Beakful of Bugs

A yellow-headed blackbird stuffs his beak full of insects, destined for his hungry family back at the nest, as he straddles plants just above the waterline. Taken at Long Lake at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in May 2011, the yellow-heads didn’t often come as close as the more ubiquitous red-wings but it was such a treat when they did.

I Take It You Trust Me

One of the beauties of the auto tour was if you sat there quietly, sometimes the animals would walk right by the car. Or even stop beside you, as with this hunting heron scanning the marsh beyond. With its back to me, a gentle breeze tussled the feathers atop its head, showing off the white strip of feathers they grow as adults.