Tag: Washington

A Christmas Miracle

A close-up view of a short-eared owl

Perhaps miracle is a bit strong, but I was delighted to find this short-eared owl on Christmas along Ridgefield’s auto tour, it had been almost a decade since I had last seen one. I didn’t have much time for pictures as there was a car approaching from behind and I wanted them to see the owl too. Since I already had my big telephoto mounted I took some quick head-and-shoulders shots. I was shooting out of my car’s window, so to get a slightly different look from the top picture I lowered the window to get more of the distant trees as a green background to go along with the brown grasses around Rest Lake. I then moved on and in my rear-view mirror I saw the folks behind me got a nice look too.

A close-up view of a short-eared owl

A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall

A ring-necked duck swims in a heavy rain on Bull Lake

I was sitting next to Bull Lake for a while, watching a male bufflehead diving for food and photographing him whenever he swam close. I’ve been wanting to take more environmental portraits so when he moved a ways off I turned my lens to this distant ring-necked duck as the rain moved in. I was happy enough with the early pics but then the rain turned heavy and pounded the water in large drops. Ducks are built for the wet of course but even so I felt a bit sorry for him as the water exploded around him. The hard rain lasted only seconds, then he and the other ducks resumed their feeding.

If you’d like a closer view of what a ring-necked duck looks like, I took this picture almost a year earlier just one lake over. It was also raining, but only lightly.

The Submerged Crosstrek

The shadow of my Subaru Crosstrek falls on a frozen Rest Lake at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

I spent the second-to-last day of my Christmas break at Ridgefield, arriving before sunrise and leaving after sunset. The bald eagles had been pretty active and the sunny day brought out many visitors to admire them, so late in the afternoon I parked a ways away so I could watch the day end in a more peaceful and relaxed state. When I saw the setting sun cast a shadow of my little Subaru on a frozen Rest Lake, I couldn’t resist a self-portrait as an homage to a picture I had taken almost exactly a year earlier (but around the bend and at sunrise instead of sunset).

But it was even more of a nod to the recurring nightmare I used to have, of me visiting Ridgefield and driving my car into the lake, as the angle of the sun made the the car look like it was submerged. Thankfully I haven’t had the dream in a while so I was in a rather whimsical mood when I took the picture.

The white birds on the distant part of the lake are tundra swans, most are sitting on the ice, but there was a small section of open water where a large number of ducks and geese had concentrated. This is also one of the last places I photographed coyotes (these pictures from January 2012 were taken near this spot).

Submerged also describes how I’ve felt most of the past couple of months, as a hectic work schedule had me working many nights and weekends. Thankfully things are returning to normal as the stress had worn me down, but I was able to not work for our three day holiday weekend and spent the days drifting in and out of sleep as my body and mind began to recover.

The Slow Reveal

A male red-winged blackbird sings at sunrise

Before returning in December, my previous visit to Ridgefield had been in January not long after Emma died, so at first my heart wasn’t in it. But after spending a long while watching a male red-winged blackbird at South Quigley Lake, I began to enjoy myself and stayed longer than I had initially intended. So I was looking forward to seeing them again this time but I didn’t see a single one in my first few visits. On the fourth trip I heard them but didn’t see them. I did finally see one on my fifth visit but didn’t get any pictures until the seventh, when this lovely male sang for me as the sun rose behind us.

House on the Lake

Orange reflections on the surface of Bull Lake

On December 30th I was at Ridgefield photographing a heron and egret as the sun began to set. They were both down in a channel slightly below the road so they fell into shadow before the surrounding area. I drove to the start of Bull Lake and watched a bufflehead diving for food until he too was no longer lit by the setting sun. I was about to call it a day when I noticed one section of the lake was a brilliant orange, a reflection from a house high on the hill above the refuge that was still lit by the rays of the sun.

I decided to use the reflections to play around with some abstracts, starting with a completely de-focused image, but got no further as when I went to adjust the focus the colors faded. When I looked up I saw that even the hills were no longer lit so I drove the short distance to the parking lot and packed up my gear and headed home. I was sick on New Year’s Eve and didn’t head out, so this inadvertently ended up being my last picture of 2015.

The Deluge

A male northern shoveler feeds during a heavy downpour at Long Lake in Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Ridgefield, Washington on December 23, 2015. Original: _L1A7885.CR2

The rain here in the Northwest is frequent during the cooler months but it’s usually more drizzle than downpour, yet it has absolutely poured at times this month. I love photographing in the rain and am always a little disappointed when there’s a good strong shower but nothing to shoot. Fortunately I was already watching a group of shovelers feeding in Long Lake when a sudden deluge of large raindrops pounded the surface of the water. The ducks of course are built for wet weather and fed unabated, and soon enough the rain softened in intensity.

📷: Canon 7D II | Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x III
🗓️: December 23, 2015

High Water

A nutria feeds in Bull Lake in front of a partially submerged sign

We set a record for the wettest December ever when we were only three weeks into the month, and it has often rained since then, so it is no surprise that the water levels at Ridgefield are a little high. But not nearly so much as this picture would suggest, that sign is back near a hunter’s blind near the shore of Bull Lake, which itself is managed to mimic the flood plains of the Columbia before the dams went in. An unusually hot and dry summer left us with little snowpack in the mountains and we haven’t seen the widespread flooding we got when I moved here almost twenty years ago.

I took advantage of a two week vacation from work to return to Ridgefield (and going out to do photography in general) after a year’s absence. I’ve been up there six times so far and will probably go a few more times before it is time to head back to work. I’ve had a lot of fun and mostly photographed animals I’ve photographed many times before, biggest surprise was finding a short-eared owl up close, but I’ve been more surprised by what I haven’t seen: mammals apart from the ever-present nutria, and more importantly, my beloved bitterns.

I knew I was going to be hard-pressed to find bitterns when I drove by Rest Lake, which has by far been my best spot to find them the past few years, and saw that the way the water and the plants are in that area, the bitterns would be a lot more exposed than they like to be. I looked for them on every visit but didn’t see a single one. I still have a lot of old pictures to edit and get back online so regardless bittern pictures will be coming.

It was good to be back, the key will be to keep the momentum going and keep heading out once I’m back at work, as it is going to be a hectic month or two.