Monthly Archives: January 2011

The Start of the Year


An American bittern holds a Townsend's vole above the ice on a winter's day

Pity the Townsend's vole, an important food source in the diet of a large variety of predators at Ridgefield

Although I failed in my quest to find a bittern in the frost on the last day of 2010, the first day of 2011 rewarded me with a bittern on the ice — a hunting bittern on the ice.

The day started out promising when I glimpsed a blacktail buck on the drive down through the canyon and onto the refuge at Ridgefield, but after putting on a show the day before the rest of the animals seemed to be sleeping in. While the early hours weren’t crowded, as the morning wore on the visitors picked up rapidly and the big lens attracted a small crowd whenever I stopped.

On the far side of the refuge, I like to drive slowly along Rest Lake to look for bitterns, so I pulled over to let an approaching car past so that I could move at my own pace. Even as I was pulling over I noticed this bittern down below in the frozen channel and settled in to watch. Within moments the bittern struck into the grass and brought out this terrified vole.

Bitterns often like to dunk their prey in the water and so it gingerly stepped down the rim of ice, struggling not to slip, and then dunked the vole into the water. Or tried to at least, but failed, since the water in this section was still frozen. It seemed mystified for a moment and stood motionless before eating its meal undunked.

After taking a few environmental portraits of the bittern on the ice, I moved ahead just slightly to another nice location and waited for the bittern to come past. But a Land Rover came up behind me and the couple got out of their car (a no-no on the auto tour during the winter) to set up their scope to view the distant ducks and swans.

Not surprisingly I didn’t see the bittern again.

When I got to the end of the auto tour, I was going to go around again but my heart sank when I saw a nearly solid line of cars between Horse and South Quigley Lakes. I learned my lesson from Christmas day, when I should have left when it got over-crowded but didn’t, and headed home.

Ellie got an extra walk and playtime in the park, and extra hedgehogging as well, so all-in-all a fantastic start to the year for everyone but the vole.


An American bittern tries to dunk a Townsend's vole through the ice on a winter's day

Neither bittern nor vole was happy with the outcome of this dunk attempt, but the vole got the worst of it

The End of the Year

An adult bald eagle fights with a juvenile in mid-air

I love to photograph Ridgefield in the rain but the last day of the year dawned sunny and cold. The cold was key as I had a chance at wildlife in frost, but so was the sunny as the chance would be brief.

Near the start of the auto tour a distant coyote limped across a frosty meadow. Not much else was going on as I drove all the way round to Rest Lake to look for the bitterns that had hunted there the past couple of weeks. The bitterns weren’t around so I settled in to watch the swans, eventually moving on to a nearby heron.

The sun was up now and the frost melted fast but the light was beautiful, and since the heron was nicely set against the frozen lake I settled in for some pictures. What I wanted was a good wide yawn and after a long wait I eventually got a couple.

I was about to move on when I saw a young bald eagle harassing the ducks and then flying in my direction. Suddenly there were two great pairs of wings and level flight turned to chaos. An adult eagle had flown in to defend its territory and I struggled to keep them in frame as they somersaulted through the air. This picture is rather soft because the focus was off, but I love the look of the juvenile flipping onto its back to defend itself.

A good way to end the year.

I didn’t get my pictures of ice or frost, but the next day the new year started with bitterns hunting on the ice, and the next day brought otters and raccoons on the ice.

A good way to start the year.

A Slow Return

Our cat Templeton sniffing the air

Templeton died a few years ago, long before I had an iPhone, but since I gave the other pets the Instagram treatment, it only seemed fair to upload one of my favorite pictures of him onto the iPhone and give it a go. I was thinking of a funny moment with him the other day and burst out laughing, I felt a bit self-conscious but consoled myself that the other riders on the train had probably seen stranger things.

Updates here have been pretty few and far between the past few months, partly due to long hours at work, but hopefully I’ll be a bit better now that things have calmed down. But the other part of the equation is that the Canon 7D has ruined my life.

Not that I don’t love it, it’s by far the best camera I’ve ever owned and I’ve had a great deal of fun with it the past year. It’s just that the files it creates are so much larger than my older cameras that it broke my workflow. The biggest problem is that my old laptop isn’t up to the task of processing the large images. And while I’ve known that for the past year, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a PC to solve the problem.

Most of that comes down to how much I’ve loved OS X since switching to the Mac years ago, and lately to how much I love the little iPhone. But push has come to shove, I took a large number of pictures over Christmas at Ridgefield and realized I haven’t even finished sorting, much less editing, some of my pictures from my visits last Christmas.

Since I’m not a fan of Apple’s desktops, I’ll be making my return to Windows for my photo processing machine (but keeping the MacBook for everything else). I’ve decided to build the computer this time instead of buying one, my first attempt at that, and hope to be up and running in the next couple of weeks. Can’t wait! Although the dizzying array of motherboards may drive me to take up the drink.

So before too long pictures should start coming online fast and furious. Next up will be one of my favorite images of 2010, taken on the last day of the year, but I’m tired so it will have to wait ’til the morrow. It’s not the sharpest picture, even at web sizes, but if you like eagles …

Seven and Two


Our dog Ellie rests on the hardwood

To get the full effect, make a loud sigh when you view this picture, to let the world know how put upon you truly are as you oh-so-patiently wait for the next round of hedgehogging

Happy Birthday Ellie!

We adopted our sweet girl two years ago and, since we don’t know her real birthday, we celebrate it today as well. She was five when we adopted her and so now turns seven.

This picture is from June when she was still recuperating from her surgery, this is the look I get in between sleeping and snuggling and hedgehogging. Speaking of which, someone has been patiently waiting all night for me to finish my chores, so I’d better go.