On Monday’s trip to Westport’s docks I kept hearing an explosive splashing. I followed it to find two large sea lions diving and splashing around the end of a large ship. Despite standing at the very end of the dock for over a half hour balancing on a sloping dock, I was never able to get a better shot of either of the sea lions than this one, mostly because I could never predict where they would emerge next.
Frustrated, I went back to photographing the birds I’d come to photograph.
However, in the process of photographing seagulls, I began to notice that large numbers of gulls were landing in particular areas, and flying up and down, as if waiting.
While focused on one of those groups, I saw a tremendous splash, immediately followed by gulls taking off and landing. If you look closely you can see a fish right behind the dark gull just taking off.
Unlike me, the gulls could predict where the sea lion was going to emerge with a fish in its mouth, and were waiting for scraps of salmon that were thrown about in all the thrashing.
All I had to do was focus on the circle of gulls and eventually I would get a shot of a sea lion emerging with a fish in his mouth.
Follow a single stand devotedly enough, and you begin to unravel a little more of nature’s mysteries.