Month: September 2005

A Great Egret

Photographically speaking, today’s visit to Niisqually Refuge was a rather tough day. First, I couldn’t get my camera set up fast enough to get a picture of a little woodpecker that I encountered within a hundred yards of beginning the walk. Even though I saw him later, I never got nearly as close as I did at the beginning of the walk.

As it turned out, I saw fewer birds today than I saw on any of my previous five visits. There just plain didn’t seem to be many birds out today. I suspect that we’re between seasons, where the summer birds have largely disappeared and migrating birds haven’t quite shown up.

The only unusual bird I saw today was a great egret, a bird I’d originally seen three weeks ago but didn’t have much luck shooting because it was so dark and cloudy. It was bright and clear today, but I didn’t have much better luck than before although I wasn’t more than ten feet away from him for nearly a half hour.

The problem was that he was sitting preening himself on the other side of a rather dense tree, and, although he didn’t seem to mind my taking pictures of him, he certainly wasn’t going to make taking them easy. Despite my best efforts, I could never get a clear shot of him and couldn’t get far enough away to fit him into a single shot.

So what I ended up with was two rather interesting shots that have been stitched together from three or fours different shots. Strangely enough, I’m rather fond of both of them, and decided that I really didn’t need to do anything to enhance either picture.

As you can tell, this is clearly not a “realistic� shot, but I haven’t manipulated the images at all in Photoshop, as I often do. The bands of light were produced by varying branches and leaves between me and the egret, not by stitching the pictures together because any flaws of that nature would show up as straight horizontal lines, not band of various shades and colors.

I did get a few close-ups that would probably be considered “realistic,� but I prefer these two shots.

They somehow capture the intimate feeling that I got from watching the egret groom itself the half hour I was there. There’s almost a voyeuristic overtone to the photographs that also somehow seems somehow appropriate.

Of course, perhaps I just appreciate the fact that they appear rather artistic without my having to do a single thing to them in Photoshop.

Standing at the Gates

Would anyone truly be surprised to find Dante’s inscription “Abandon all hope ye who enter here� had been permanently etched on the gates of New Orleans?

Why were Americans more shocked and outraged at looters and rioters than at the fact that the poor, the elderly, the weak and the infirm had been left behind to face hurricane Katrina on their own while wealthy residents loaded up SUV’s and jammed freeways in their rush to leave?

Why are Americans more willing to assuage their conscience by donating money to charitable organizations than to tax themselves to insure such tragedies do not occur? Why weren’t Louisiana residents willing to tax themselves to create a system that could adequately protect all their residents from this not un-expected event rather than leave residents to fend for themselves?

Why do I keep replaying Ray Charles’ “Heaven Help Us All”

Heaven help the child who never had a home,
Heaven help the girl who walks the street alone
Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall,
Heaven help us all.

Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day,
Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away,
Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl,
Heaven help us all.

Heaven help us all, heaven help us all, help us all.
Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we call
Oh, yeah!

Heaven help the boy who won’t reach twenty-one,
Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun.
Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall,
Lord, Heaven help us all.

Heaven help us all, heaven help us all, heaven help us all, help us all.
Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we call.

Now I lay me down before I go to sleep.
In a troubled world, I pray the Lord to keep, keep hatred from the mighty,
And the mighty from the small,
Heaven help us all.
Oh, oh, oh, yeah!
Heaven help us all.

and turning away from the TV and newspaper?

If Americans insist on following our current path, could there be a better symbol of the fate that awaits us all than New Orleans?

The Small Things in Life

Judging from how few pictures I took on my last trip to Nisqually National Refuge, it might seem less than a successful trip. I didn’t see the Great Horned Owl or the Great Egret I’d seen the week before; in fact, I didn’t see a single new bird. For that matter, I saw very few birds at all.

I won’t cite one of those infamously tacky bumper stickers that proclaim “The worst day of fishing is still better than the best day at workâ€? even though I suspect my worst day at Nisqually will always be better than any day I spent in the classroom. Birding reminds me a lot of fishing, and I would have to agree with Thoreau who said, “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” Thankfully, I know it’s not bird pictures I’m after.

No matter how peaceful or relaxing the day, though, it’s always nice to have some special moment to remember it by. And for me that moment came rather unexpectedly.

I’d decided that if I were going to see any birds I needed to stand in one place and wait patiently for them. I had barely paused when I heard a rustling. Looking down, I saw this mink, if I’ve correctely identified him,

digging in the grass. He looked up, checked to see if I represented any immediate danger, and went back to digging.

Unfortunately, my 400 mm telephoto lens was at a disadvantage at such close range, and the automatic focus couldn’t decide whether to focus on the grass in front of him or on the mink.

Picture or no picture, I was thrilled by the close encounter with this wild, fearless little guy who had little time for me and soon disappeared into the tall grass, looking for his next meal.

While I’m still anticipating my first encounter with the river otters that others keep telling me about, I was delighted by my first brief encounter with a mink that wasn’t part of someone’s coat.