Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
As time passes more and more of the dead trees at Ridgefield succumb to the slough. Upon returning to the refuge after a long absence, I noticed this tree in South Big Lake had finally fallen. It was too far from the road to ever be a favorite of mine but I did shoot it occasionally, such as this portrait of a kingfisher on one of its branches from a few years ago, set against the overcast sky.
Thanks to the auto tour at Ridgefield NWR, I’ve had the chance to watch coyotes up close on many occasions without disturbing them, such as this one hunting for voles on Christmas afternoon in 2011. But if it survived into the spring of this year it’s likely dead now, as the coyotes on the refuge were killed in an attempt to improve the likelihood of Columbian white-tailed fawns surviving into adulthood. The deer are a threatened species while coyotes most certainly are not.
Killing coyotes may be necessary to help the whitetails recover, but I’ll miss them, they were one of my favorites.
I headed up to Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge yesterday for the first time in nearly a year, wondering what changes I might see, but the most unexpected change was one I saw in my rear view mirror. I had stopped along Rest Lake to photograph a couple of bitterns that were hunting near the road, but I kept having to move up to let traffic behind me through, before backing up to resume my watch.
The bitterns were soon gone but a great blue heron was slowly working its way in my direction, so I settled in to see how close it would come. I frequently checked my rear view mirror to watch for approaching cars but none came. But then in the mirror there was a slow movement of brown from one side of the road to the other, and when I swiveled my head around to look got my first glimpse of a Columbian white-tailed deer. Two of them actually, a doe and her fawn.
The doe had bright yellow tags in each ear and a large radio collar around each neck, she was one of thirty-seven that were emergency translocated earlier this year from another refuge in Washington (and one of twenty-nine that survived). Her fawn, though, belongs to the first generation born at Ridgefield. It and the other deer will be closely watched to see how they survive in their new home, as the Columbian whitetail was only recently downlisted from endangered to threatened status.
But at the moment, it was just the two of us watching each other, each seemingly as surprised as the other by the encounter.
Tundra swans usually don’t come close to the road at Ridgefield so I was particularly pleased late on a winter’s day to find an accommodating swan. But as I was photographing it, someone else came up and parked behind me and committed the cardinal sin of the auto tour — he opened his car door and got out. Of course the swan spooked and I drove away in frustration and was going to head home, but instead calmed myself and started looking for other things to shoot. The meadow at the end of the auto tour was empty, no herons or hawks or coyotes, so I thought I was done for the day.
But this great egret was waiting for me just past the parking lot and let me photograph it until it was time to head home.
My favorite coyote picture, taken over a year ago in January of 2012.
Coyotes have a complicated and controversial relationship with our modern world, and I’m not sure how this pack will fare now that subdivisions have replaced the meadows on the hills above the refuge. I see them near the road sometimes as I drive into town before sunrise, but I see them as roadkill too. And there will be conflicts with barbed-wire fences and dogs and cats.
But on this morning, as it hunted for voles with its mate, and as a few snowflakes began to fall, all was peaceful. Only the three of us were around, and since I stayed quiet in my car, they let me watch at my leisure as they worked the length of the dike.
A peaceful morning for me, if not for the voles.
Northern harriers like this yawning female are one of the most commonly seen birds of prey at Ridgefield but they usually keep their distance, so I don’t get to play around with close-up pictures of them. I keep hoping one day …
A female lesser scaup scans the skies while swimming in the soft light of a winter’s morning. I love photographing when the waters are this still and found her expression almost whimsical, but there’s a good reason the ducks keep an eye on the skies above Ridgefield.
I was photographing this pied-billed grebe when such large raindrops began to fall that it looked like depth charges were exploding around it.
For a car to work as my daily driver, it needs to do well in two situations:
I’m in the midst of a long vacation so I (thankfully) haven’t had the chance to test our new Crosstrek on the work commute, but Christmas was lining up to be my first chance to test it at Ridgefield. It’s become a bit of a tradition for me to go to Ridgefield first thing on Christmas morning as sometimes I practically have the refuge to myself, a nice time for quiet contemplation during a hectic time of the year.
Late on Christmas Eve after my wife had gone to bed I went out into the garage and just looked at the car for a while. I was nervous, for the next day would prove whether my high hopes for this car would pan out at the refuge. I sat in it for a while and read the owner’s manual enough until I figured out how to quiet the beeps when you lock the car. My nerves settled, I headed up to bed and set my alarm to wake me before sunrise.
I love photographing in the rain and Christmas delivered the wet in abundance as I drove in the dark to the refuge, giving me a quick feel for how the little Subaru would handle the heavy rain compared to its bigger sibling (thankfully, it handled the soaked streets and big puddles quite well, I was thankful not to be in the Civic).
I was relieved to see the car did well along the auto tour too (the icing on the cake would have been if it had been a hybrid so I could drive more quietly around the refuge, but it was not to be). At this time of year you can’t get out of the car except in the parking lots, so I took a quick picture beside the sign in the entrance lot.
I’m definitely still in the honeymoon phase but so far I’m just loving this little car.
I’ve been back to the refuge and it’s gravel road a few times since Christmas, each time in the rain, and it’s starting to feel less and less like someone else’s car and more and more like mine. But she’s not quite as white as she used to be.
This is one of my favorite bittern pictures as it shows the way I often wind down a day at Ridgefield, watching bitterns near the end of the auto tour before I have to leave to beat the closing of the automated gate, the setting sun leaving the bittern to hunt in shadow. These last moments always make me wonder — what do bitterns do in the dark?
Boolie 