Right-Of-Way Dispute

Day 31: When a bird standing with its feet on the ground can meet you eye to eye, it would be extremely unwise to dispute trail right-of-way. I had dropped off the kitty quilt at the Nisqually Land Trust's offce before going over to Billy Frank National Wildlife Refuge to complete my "Junior Refuge Manager" tasks (something I'd begun on the day Crow's Travellin' Science Show presented on the subject of lichens). One of the tasks set in the Junior Refuge Manager booklet was to find a Great Blue Heron. On a normal day, you could easily find three or four out on the tide flat, but the boardwalk was closed for repair. Even so, there should have been one in the grassland or in one of the ponds. I had almost given up hope after talking to another photographer who had been there looking for them for some time, but as I started back toward the riparian area to complete another section of the booklet, I was brought up short by Heron standing motionless in the trail intersection. I edged around sideways to get a better angle, but Heron was not the least bit concerned. There was no doubt in his mind about who'd win a contest for space.

Heron In Repose

Day 121: The Nisqually Land Trust held a workshop for site stewards old and new at Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge this morning, which gave me the perfect excuse for a nature walk. After sitting for several hours, I was more than ready for a two-mile sprint to the end of the boardwalk, but I had forgotten about the seasonal closure of the last 700'. I find it hard to reconcile duck hunting with a refuge, but I am not the land manager. I'm sure there was wisdom in the decision, or at the very least, an agreeable trade-off. That said, the wildlife seems to know to stay close in, and several Great Blue Herons provided plenty of photo ops. Sleepy Sam untucked for the classic heron portrait, but I have tons of wide-awake heron images in my files, not nearly as cute (in my opinion) as Heron In Repose.

Zen Master

Day 232: The Zen Master strikes a pose. To all purposes, he becomes a stick: grey, angular, motionless on the bank and remaining so, at least seemingly. A keen eye may notice that he drifts slightly with the breeze which lightly ripples the water, motion measured in the merest fraction of an inch. He settles onto his forward leg, the lightest change to his center of gravity. The muscles of his rear leg relax, the angle of his knee changing imperceptibly. His stance is a poem of tai chi balance and form, flowing with grace over a five-minute span to reach a new position. His rear leg is now forward, and the observer wonders how the transition occurred because she has not taken her eyes off him and registered no movement. Suddenly, there is a thrust of his beak downward, piercing the water like a blade. He tosses his head back and gulps a hapless amphibian down in a lump. There is a moment's pause, and then the Zen Master spreads his wings to take off in an incongruously ungainly flight, sweeping through the branches to look for another hunting ground.

Heron On The Hunt

Day 138: Great Blue Herons are hard to resist when you have a camera slung around your neck, and I had plenty of willing models at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge today. I had gone to attend a Site Steward workshop and bonus nature-mapping segment, and good weather tempted me out to the end of the boardwalk yet again. The tide was in but receding, and a number of different varieties of duck were feeding in the shallows, accompanied by herons and gulls. I was able to capture images of both Common (Eurasian) and Green-Winged Teal as well. However, the herons always take the place of honor when I sort photos, my eye captivated by their ungainly yet graceful posturing.

Flasher

Day 327: This photo should dispel any notions my readers may have had about Great Blue Herons being graceful, elegant birds. Of course, nobody looks good when they're fresh out of the tub and I'm sure this fellow (?) wasn't expecting the paparazzi to be on his doorstep. Star attractions just can't have a private moment without somebody pointing a camera at them.

The Hunter

Day 267: Tanwax Lake already had a toxic blue-green algae alert posted for it by the time I purchased my kayak last August, so it went on my list of potential early-season paddles for this year. It's a fairly small lake (approximately 172 acres) and feeds Tanwax Creek at the west end. Much of the shoreline is developed, but a section of the north side is brushy and wild. That's where I found Mr. Heron doing his part to control the invasive bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) which populate so many of our western Washington water resources. Sidebar here: those water lilies in the photo (Nymphaea odorata) are also an invasive species. They can be white or pink with green or reddish-green leaves.

I admit it: I like taking pictures of Herons, common though they may be. Their ability to camouflage themselves against a background of cattails simply by standing straight and tall is uncanny. You'd think they'd stick out like a sore thumb...big grey spot surrounded by green...but I was almost on top of this fellow before I saw him. He'd seen me, though, and had that bright yellow eye firmly fixed on the invader in his territory. With the blades barely rippling the water, I paddled past him until I was occluded from his sight by a tussock of foliage. Then slowly and carefully, I tucked the paddle into the 'yak and let the wind carry the boat, a silently floating (if brightly colored) "log" as far as Mr. Heron was concerned. By then, he'd gone back to looking for lunch, and was having a high degree of success at the project. Of all the photos I got, this was my favourite. It shows Mr. Heron's supreme concentration on the task at hand: survival. Kinda puts our human complaints of lousy cell phone service and mean bosses into a whole 'nother perspective, if you think about it.

Parsing Ardea Herodias

Day 124: I had never heard of David Hockney or "joiners" until the subject came up in a photographic forum and we were given the assignment to create a thingumabob in the style of what's-his-face. I googled the subject and got your typical assortment of fact and fallacy the internet serves up, but I believe I got a feel for what I was being asked to do. The problem was to find an appropriate subject for parsing into small pieces. Ideally, I'd have used a wildflower for the experiment, but a Great Blue Heron came along at the proper moment and here you see the result.

Artistic endeavours are not my long suit. I prefer recording nature as accurately as possible through my lens, at least most of the time. I occasionally venture into wild post-processing (especially if I've had too much caffeine or not enough sleep), but creating capital-A Art falls fairly far outside my purview. That said, I rather enjoyed sectioning Ardea herodias and reconstituting him in the transporter room of PaintShopPro.

From the original photo, I created a black-and-white enlargement which I then pasted and merged onto a white background at reduced opacity. Then I mapped offset sections of the original by pixel position, copied them and pasted them onto the b/w background, adding a slight drop-shadow around each one. These sections were also reduced in opacity. They were arranged using the snap-to-grid function so that they would be aligned vertically. When I was satisfied with the positioning, all layers were merged and the resultant image was copied and pasted over the color original, again at reduced opacity. Finishing touches included some light tone-mapping, lightening of the shadows and adjusting the contrast.

That's a lot to put a poor Heron through.

Handsome Heron

Day 107: For the last couple of weeks, I have been wanting to make a trip down to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, but weather always seemed to present an obstacle. Although the temperature was below freezing this morning, I left home under clear skies, but descended into fog. Knowing that the last 700 feet of the boardwalk would be closed until the end of the month, I almost decided to turn around and put Plan B into action, but a hike in Pack Forest in the fog didn't have much appeal. The fog thinned as I approached the delta, and I was happy to see...to be able to see!...the gazebo at the end of the walkway.

Coming along the trail by the Twin Barns, I spotted Mallards and Buffleheads, a Merganser and a gaggle of Canada Geese, although small birds were not much in evidence. Then my eye was caught by a Peregrine Falcon flying along just above the marsh grass searching for breakfast. I was so intent on the Falcon that I almost walked past the Blue Heron on the opposite side of the path, no more than ten feet from me. When I first noticed the bird, it had its head cocked to the side and one beady eye fixed on something in a clump of grass. My presence on the trail was no deterrent to the Heron's concentration, but I never saw it pick up its prey.

Frog Watcher

Day 34: One of the main attractions in Eatonville's Smallwood Park is a man-made pond approximately half an acre in size. This tiny pothole of water is stocked annually and is designated "Fishing for juveniles only." The wording makes me laugh. I've always wondered what type of bait is required to catch a ten-year old. In any event, the little pond usually gets fished out in the few weeks following Opening Day, but when the human anglers disappear, the real experts move in. Heron doesn't care if he catches a fine rainbow or a scrawny frog as long as it satisfies his hunger. I don't think this bird was having much luck, or perhaps he knew something I didn't. He certainly didn't want to give up his spot on the bank as I edged my way closer. His attention was on something, to be sure. I clicked my tongue and made squeaking noises to entice him to look up, but only succeeded when I quacked like a duck. He gave me a disdainful glare and returned to his task, only flying away when I got within about twenty feet.

A Bridge For Everyone

Day 13: Lost in their gossip, the two women were entirely oblivious to the Blue Heron standing boldly on the path not a dozen feet in front of them. Even more astonishing was the dog's apparent unconcern, his attention given solely to repeated territory-marking of the bridge's wooden posts. I had braked my bike some ways back, careful not to startle the bird into flight, but I needn't have worried. He turned his back to the walkers, spread his legs in a defiant posture, as if to say, "You're not going to shift me. I was here first." Nevertheless, he was the one who gave ground, walking placidly into the brush at the side of the trail, still unnoticed by the chatting ladies or the dog. I felt for a moment that I had been given a glimpse of a better world, one where all things in nature coexist in a harmonious balance.

Open Hostility

Today as I was sitting by one of my favorite wetlands along the Foothills Trail, I was casting about for photographic subjects and in the tail of my eye, caught a flurry of wings and a dive-bombing streak. I looked up and saw a Great Blue Heron perched at the top of an old snag about twenty feet high and a Red-Winged Blackbird devilling the daylights out of him. There were actually two male Red-Wings working together. One bird would dive for the Heron's head, permitting its companion in the assault to approach from behind to land on the big bird's back or stubby tail. The Heron stood its ground for a good fifteen minutes, remaining motionless under the savage attacks save for stretching its neck and raising its beak. Finally, it gave up. One Blackbird immediately occupied the perch and announced its dominance with rapidly repeated calls. If you look closely, you can see where the cap of the Heron's wing has been bloodied by repeated peckings. I was fortunate to make this capture of the Red-Wing in full display.