Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
A juvenile bald eagle calls out to other nearby eagles on a rainy winter morning in 2008. Rest Lake had frozen over during a cold snap but by mid-morning a steady rain was falling and soon enough the ice would melt. I was rather surprised years earlier when I first heard an eagle’s call, given their size I assumed they’d have a rather raucous call so I was a bit taken aback by the soft and gentle cry that escaped their fearsome beaks.
This picture resonates strongly with me of my former home in the Pacific Northwest, a paradise dressed in blue and green. A tree swallow pausing from its aerial hunt on a rainy spring morning, tiny drops of rain beading on its tiny wings. The blue of the bird, the greens of the moss and lichen, the blue of Long Lake below, the green of the lush grasses at its marshy border, the meadow beyond. When I first visited Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge years ago the lake was full of snags near the road but one by one they began to fall. This snag was the last one near the road but eventually it too fell.
The coyotes were active on this winter day in 2006, using the heavy fog as cover to hunt a variety of prey. This one made a half-hearted, almost playful, attempt at a great blue heron I had been photographing, later I saw one running across the meadow with a goose in its mouth.
A great blue heron takes a break from hunting voles in a meadow on a cold and foggy December morning in 2006.
One of my favorite rites of spring when we lived in the Northwest was listening to the savannah sparrows sing in the meadows. I met this one on an Easter morning 12 years ago, I had to wait a while to get the picture as it spent most of its time facing the other direction, singing to the other sparrows.
Twelve years ago on a cloudy spring morning at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge I came across this muskrat eating the grasses at the edge of one of the lakes or ponds. I don’t remember where exactly and my notes back then were rather sparse and don’t provide any clues.
A song sparrow peaks out of the marsh on a rainy October morning at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. They are year round residents here in Arizona as well but I’ve yet to see one, though to be fair I’ve only been hiking in the local desert environment.
A Pacific treefrog sits vertically in a moss-covered tree, all soaked with rain on an October morning, beside the trail to the observation blind at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. I was crestfallen when I realized I had forgotten my tripod and wouldn’t be able to photograph the frog (and another nearby on the same tree), but then I remembered I had my adapter to put Canon lenses on my Sony camera and thus was able to use both my Canon macro lens and the image stabilization of the Sony. It saved the day and thankfully so, it turned out to be the last time I saw them before leaving the Northwest.
A juvenile red-tailed hawk perches along the auto tour at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in 2010. We have redtails here in Arizona but I don’t get to see them up close like this anymore. Even at Ridgefield it seemed like in the later years I no longer saw them perching so close, so often, although I could still see them nearby in the meadows.
Boolie 