Month: September 2005

Selling Ourselves Short

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve enjoyed playing around with heron shots since I started visiting the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. The more I worked with pictures of herons the more I understood why they are such powerful symbols in the Chinese and the Japanese literary tradition.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that there are a magnificent bird not easily spooked, perfectly content to stand poised while you take picture after picture. For instance, this picture, like the ones I took of the Great Egret, is really two shots merged together only made possible by the heron’s stance:

I’ve taken enough good pictures of Great Blue Herons that I think I’ve begun to overlook other potential shots in pursuit of a more unusual shot of other birds.

Two recent incidents suggested to me that perhaps I’ve become too complacent and that I should work harder to get even better shots of these magnificent birds.

The first incident took place a couple of weeks ago when I saw this magnificent heron in the distance, one whose plumage was quite different than the ones I’ve observed closer to the refuge:

This week while walking I met and talked with Chris Yetter who’s been taking heron pictures for over a year. When I went to his web site, I knew that I had sold myself short in my efforts to get the best possible heron shots.

Good Enough for Me

When I left home this morning it was brilliantly sunny; when I reached the Nisqually National Refuge it was a dull gray.

It was so foggy that you could barely distinguish the sun through the fog,

or see the reeds in the canals.

I could have been disappointed, but I wasn’t. For a while, I simply focused on fog-muffled sounds around me. Though I saw few birds, their voices actually seemed louder and clearer than usual, miniature foghorns. Unfortunately, the deep THUNK of distant artillery fire at Fort Lewis suddenly halted that meditative moment.

So, I turned my attention to what could be seen, including many small birds like this Hutton’s Vireo that kept flying back and forth across the path at knee level:

And when there were no birds to be seen, I focused on the gaily-decorated berries that lined the road:

Surely no returning war hero has ever been greeted by lovelier decorations than those that lined my path today.

Ya Think?


“Cynic,”she called me
when I said, “Disasters
shouldn’t be this much fun,”
and laughed out loud at
bouncing cheerleaders
in short skirts holding
hastily scrawled signs reading,
“Help Katrina’s Victims,”
and pointed us to yet
another car wash
where we could watch
idealistic teens try
to scrub away
generations of neglect.

“Americans love a good
disaster,” I retorted.
Nothing makes us feel
as good as helping
those we’ve exploited
the last 150 years.
For half a millisecond
we’re one nation, under God,
invisible, clothing the poor
by emptying closets
of Calvin Klein jeans,
Vera Wang dresses,
and, later, deducting twice
the value of our donations.

A Wild Goose Chase

During the six weeks I’ve been walking the Nisqually Refuge I’ve caught glimpses of a large ghost-like bird mixed in with a flock of Canadian Geese.

Friday I finally got some decent shots of it. In fact, I was greeted at the beginning of the trail by proof that there was, in fact, a white goose mixed in with the flock:

When I mentioned the sighting to a fellow refuge visitor, I learned the legend of a domestic goose that had flown the coop years ago to join a passing band of migratory Canadian geese.

Some would argue that it was a goosish thing to do. Why would anyone turn down a steady meal for such a vagabondish life? After all, Thanksgiving was just around the corner, and who would want to miss such a joyous holiday? There was even the possibility of becoming the well-known Christmas goose, famous since Dickensian time.

After many years, such foolishness has been all but forgotten, though, and visitors to the refuge hold the goose in high regard, watching for its return each year, telling anyone who will listen the story of the goose who wouldn’t. It has become something more than mere goose, a legend in its own time:

I’ll readily admit I’m one of those stay-at-homes who never willingly left the nest, but even I find myself admiring this goose who wouldn’t live by man’s rules and insists on living its life free as the winds carrying it North and South. Someday I’ll be as free.