Washington – Boolie

This Happy Little Fellow

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”.

Eye of the Bittern

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

I Slept But Very Little

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

Savannah Stretches

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

Brown in Green

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

Fattening Up For Winter

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

Marmot on the Mount

This was a rare hike I took my big 500mm with me, but thankfully I shot the hoary marmot with a couple of other lenses too as I like this environmental portrait in front of the massive mountain. Sadly it was my last trip to Mount Rainier but it was a great visit.

📷: Canon 7D | Canon 100-400mm
🗓️: September 22, 2014

I’ll Take the Rain

Raindrops accumulate on the head of a red-winged blackbird on a damp day in the Pacific Northwest. Brings back a lot of memories of finding a favorite spot on the auto tour at Ridgefield, rolling down the windows, and reveling in the rain. I didn’t know it at the time but this was my penultimate visit before we left Oregon.

📷: Sony A6500 | Canon 500mm | Canon 1.4X
🗓️: October 1, 2017

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