Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
I’m amazed by how diverse the feathers on a single bird can be in size and shape and color and function. The feathers in the upper left are wet with rain, it was pouring up at Hurricane Ridge when I came across a handful of grouse that were huddling near some trees for a little protection from the elements. I had on a full complement of rain gear and was nice and dry, and thankfully my camera and lens had enough weather-sealing that they shook off the rain as well.
A gadwall takes a drink as he swims across Horse Lake. A bit of plant life is trailing from his bill, a leftover from a recent feeding session.
I closed out 2013 watching ducks on Horse Lake, such as this male American wigeon.
I got lucky with the top picture: the soft, warm light of sunset, the frost from an unusually cold winter day, the perfect pairing of these two baby nutria, one facing forward, the other backward, and the one nutria eating a blade of grass while holding it in its tiny hands. Then they each walked off into the shadows and out of my sight. Nutria are not native to the Northwest but they are by far the most commonly seen of our aquatic rodents, and as you can see are able to give birth and raise young even during winter.
One of my favorite moments of spring is sitting in a meadow in the still of the morning and hearing a savannah sing.
It had been raining much of the day but with no wind the surface of Rest Lake was fairly calm. A slight breeze kicked in by afternoon and created a little chop as a nutria swam towards me, creating a small bow wave in the process.
I’ve often thought about creating an album called “You’ve Got a Little Something …” to highlight animals that are carrying around a bit of their environment they picked up along the way. Diving ducks like this lesser scaup sometimes surface with plants that snagged on their back during their last feeding foray, but they often shed them on their next (as happened here, she surfaced after her next dive with a clean back).
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm + 1.4X
🗓️: December 29, 2011
I love photographing animals going about their lives in all kinds of weather, but the pouring rain didn’t bother this coot as it fed in a shallow lake, as it was already soaked from diving underwater to dislodge plants from the lakebed.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x III
🗓️: December 29, 2011
It was a mostly cloudy day but the sun peaked out early in the morning as I watched this shoveler feeding in Canvasback Lake but it ducked back behind the clouds not long after I took the picture and stayed there.
📷: Canon 7D | Canon 500mm + 1.4X
🗓️: December 31, 2011
A male shoveler on a peaceful winter morning in the Pacific Northwest.
Boolie 