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
The brochure for Ridgefield NWR had a quote from the Lewis & Clark Journal on their visit to the area that always made me smile:
I slept but very little last night for the noise kept up during the whole of the night by the swans, geese…brant (and) ducks on a small sand island…they were immensley numerous and their noise horrid.
Capt. William Clark
Lower Columbia River
November 5, 1805
As someone who both has trouble sleeping and made a similar cross-country journey when my wife and I drove to Oregon years ago, I feel qualified to comment and say the expedition should have brought a white noise machine, or at least downloaded one to their phone. Classic rookie mistake!
If they had stayed to enjoy summer in the Pacific Northwest they would have slept soundly as the big flocks of waterfowl migrate out, leaving a smaller group of residents like this Canada goose with four goslings nestled in its wings.
📷: Canon 20D | Canon 500mm f/4 | Canon 1.4X
🗓️: May 10, 2009
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
A hoary marmot feasts in a mountain meadow on a cold rainy day in the fall. Unlike the pikas they share their habitat with, they spend most of the year in hibernation and need to put on plenty of fat reserves to make it through the long winters at Mount Rainier.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm | Canon 1.4X
🗓️: September 23, 2014
Boolie 