Tag: swimming

A Pond of Ice and Fire

A male bufflehead works through the melting ice of a pond

It never seems to matter, the tears I cry,
there’s a well inside of me that never runs dry.
The Weepies, “How Will He Find Me”

I visited Ridgefield a number of times as my Christmas break was winding down late in December. On the 30th I spent the morning watching a great blue heron by Rest Lake as the sun rose and then another a bit further on in a large meadow, then on another loop of the auto tour a great egret by the Quigley Lakes and ring-necked ducks and hooded mergansers in Bower Slough. After that the light was a bit high and bright for my tastes so I settled in to watch the male bufflehead above diving for food in a partially frozen Bull Lake. He’s elevated more than normal as he’s pushing through the melting ice in preparation for a dive.

Since he’d often swim to the far side of the pond to feed, to pass the time until he swam close again, I started looking back through my hiking journal. Normally it’s just a description of my experiences while out hiking or taking pictures, but sometimes the outside world makes its way into my writing. As I flipped through the pages I came to this section from the start of the year and burst into tears:

My last day of an almost three week vacation. Been great in many ways but worry over Emma’s health has left me a bit worn out. The refuge has been a welcome respite. She’s up to 9.5 pounds now thanks to the baby food, but her appetite waned a bit yesterday and this morning. Don’t know if it’s meaningful or not.
The opening entry in my hiking journal on January 4, 2015

I wasn’t that surprised that thinking about Em would bring me to tears, even though she had died a year earlier. I was over-tired and over-stressed and that often leaves me over-emotional. But I was caught off-guard because the tears just didn’t stop. I was already parked beside the road to watch the bufflehead, and since this pond is on the right side of the road, I had moved over to the passenger’s side. Since passing cars couldn’t see me, I let the tears flow until I cried myself out.

What broke me was seeing myself a year ago, almost afraid to even put into words a rising fear that our last hope of keeping our sweet little Em alive was about to fade, knowing now that the fear was justified and that we were about to run out of options and she’d be dead in three days. Sometimes it seems there’s nothing more cruel than hope: uplifting when given, devastating when taken away.

I realized then and now that is a sign of how blessed my life is that the death of my cat a year prior, no matter how beloved, was the source of my grief. The tears soon passed, the catharthis welcomed, and I laughed to myself and whispered “Emma, you were loved, you are missed.” Feeling better I resumed my tour of the refuge. Late in the day I finally saw a bittern after coming up empty on many visits, and wrote this in my journal:

Almost embarrassing how euphoric I was after finding the bittern, especially after being so upset over Emma earlier … overall a really fun day!
My hiking journal on December 30, 2015

And I wrote that even before the last light of the day, when I watched a heron and egret hunting as the sun set. I had to leave to get off of the refuge before the automatic gate closed, but as I drove past Bull Lake on the way out, I stopped for a few more pictures when I saw the bufflehead still diving for food, this time with the water painted orange by the reflections of the setting sun on the hills above the refuge.

The perfect bookend for the day, a day that started in ice and ended in fire.

A male bufflehead dives under water to feed as the water is colored orange by reflections from the setting sun

The Quiet Blue Horse

A female lesser scaup prepares to dive on a winter day

There is much of me in this simple portrait of what may be my favorite duck. Not lesser scaup in general, but this particular duck. Over the past handful of years I’ve spent many hours sitting at Horse Lake watching a female lesser scaup dive for food. I don’t know that it’s the same individual from year to year, or even visit to visit, but I’m a little disappointed if I drive by and she’s not there.

Many photographers only like to shoot on sunny days but I also love days like this, the typical winter day of the Northwest, heavy overcast with an occasional gentle rain. I often won’t go to the refuge on sunny days since it brings out the crowds, but if it’s raining I can sometimes sit quietly and enjoy the subtle beauty of this seasonal pond without the constant noise of cars driving by (or idling while parked behind me). The scaup often hangs out on the far side of the pond but if there isn’t much traffic she’ll swim over and feed near the road.

While there are often other ducks present, she’s usually the only scaup. Perhaps she enjoys the solitude of the place as much as I do. She’s tucked her feathers tightly against her head, a sure sign that even though she just surfaced, she’s about to dive underwater to feed again.

Constant Movement

A group of American coots feeds in an open area of a frozen lake

A cold snap at the end of 2014 left many of the ponds and lakes at Ridgefield frozen over, but this group of American coots was helping keep a section of South Quigley Lake open with their constant movement as they dove under water in search of plants to eat. There’s a culvert near here that runs under the road and keeps water flowing between the north and south lakes, so the water here tends to stay open longer than the other parts of the lake.

The handful of splashes in the picture are from coots diving under the water, in the splash on the far right one of the coot’s legs is visible sticking up above the water. There’s also a pair of American wigeon on the far right, they frequently will try and take some of the plants that a coot brings to the surface, but on this morning they seemed content to just hang out with the coots and enjoy the safety in numbers as well as the open water. The sun was just starting to rise on this New Year’s morning, there’s a hill above the refuge that blocks the sun right at sunrise but it was just starting to crest the hill and illuminate the trees at the far side of the lake.