Common moorhen, Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility

I had seen the unique-looking Common Moorhen quite often on my summer walks around the Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility treatment ponds, but it was only really this occasion that I was able to get an unobstructed shot of one before it slipped back into the reeds. The bright color of its bill can really pull the eye in, but it wasn't until I saw this image that I realized how large their feet are! A fascinating bird for sure, and the chicks are really adorable too.

Elephant seal keeping watch, Año Nuevo State Reserve

The elephant seals of Año Nuevo State Reserve are pretty used to seeing humans in the park, and they are relatively relaxed around us as long as we keep our distance. However, they still like to keep tabs on everyone entering their stretch of beach, and if someone gets too close they get nervous. In this shot, a bull elephant seal has his big round eyes trained on a new group of people that was walking by. Since they kept their distance, he would soon go back to laying down and enjoying the sunset.

View more photos of these impressive animals in my Elephant Seals Gallery.

Northern shoveler drakes, Radio Road Ponds

With their handsome plumage patterns, over-sized bills, green heads, and yellow eyes, Northern shovelers are my favorite duck species to watch and photograph. Their numbers increase each winter in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Radio Road Ponds in Redwood City was a great place to have a chance to get close to them. There are also many other duck and shorebird species to see there as well.

View more photos of northern shovelers and other duck species in my Ducks Gallery.

Fog rolls over Inverness Ridge, Point Reyes National Seashore

In my post of a killdeer at sunrise a few days ago, I mentioned that I watched the fog roll over the evergreen forests of Inverness Ridge before continuing to Limantour Beach on my first trip to Point Reyes in 2011. This is some of that fog. It was beautiful to watch, as the rolling motion of the moisture-laden air was clearly visible, and the patterns change by the moment. Even more stunning was that about 20 minutes before I took this photo full of cool morning colors, the sky appeared to be on fire with the first light of the day.

View more images of the scenic beauty of this awesome park in my Point Reyes Landscapes Gallery.

Killdeer at sunrise, Point Reyes National Seashore

One of the most fun parts of spending years photographing wildlife in Point Reyes National Seashore was that I never knew what subjects I would find on a given day. Sure, I always came up with a plan of what I would be targeting as I drove through Marin County to arrive at a trailhead before sunrise, but a lot of my best work was from the luck of finding something unexpected along the way. On this particular morning, I had hoped to photograph shorebirds on the beach of Limantour Spit for my first trip to Point Reyes in 2011. Instead, I was treated to an amazingly colorful sunrise over the thick fog blanketing the rest of the park. After spending some time watching the fog roll over Inverness Ridge, I continued on to my targeted destination and pulled into the Limantour Beach parking lot. As I got out of the car into the cool (and so refreshing) early morning air of Point Reyes, I was greeted by the call of two plovers in the dew covered grass nearby. I quickly grabbed my camera out of the car and set to work photographing these beautiful shorebirds in the morning light. As the killdeer eventually started crossing the pavement, I left them behind and headed to the beach with their calls to each other still echoing behind me.

View more photos of one of my favorite areas of Point Reyes National Seashore in my Limantour Beach Gallery.

Scaups at sunset, San Francisco Bay

This time of year is great for a visit to Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina, since a small population of burrowing owls takes up residence there each winter. Last year, I took many evening trips to the park to see the owls after work in hopes of photographing them bathed in the golden rays of a setting sun over the Golden Gate. The owls are not the only interesting birds there though, as I have also photographed a great blue heron hunting for rodents in the grass and some ducks like these scaups paddling around the calm waters of the bay.



These shots were initially an afterthought on that trip, since I was photographing them from the top of the rocks at the shoreline, and I much prefer to take images much closer to eye level. However, I'm glad that I fired off a few frames, since what really pulled me in was the reflection of the setting sun in the surface of the water. The sunsets over the Golden Gate Bridge are spectacular during the winter with bright rich colors, and from Cesar Chavez Park, the sun slips below the horizon directly behind the bridge.

View more photos of waterfowl in my Ducks Gallery.

Submitted to World Bird Wednesday -- Follow the link to check out this week's posts!

Overcast snowy plover, Point Reyes National Seashore

In keeping with the theme of my previous two posts, here is another shot pulled from the archives of an awesome trip I took to Point Reyes National Seashore in February of last year. This series of images illustrates part of why I love Point Reyes so much -- because I could start out my day being surrounded by a herd of tule elk, then have time to cruise through the park to see a kestrel, a skunk, and a bobcat along the roads, before ending up on Limantour Spit to photograph shorebirds including sanderlings and western snowy plovers like this one. While all of these shots lacked the magic light of the golden hour, Point Reyes taught me to truly appreciate overcast skies for wildlife photography. If the marine layer fog hadn't kept the sky covered throughout the morning, I would have been ready to leave the park after seeing the elk and losing the nice light to ugly blue skies. Instead, this wonderful diffuse light stayed around all morning, and I was able to keep shooting all the way up until it was time to head home in time to have lunch with my wife.

View more photos of these adorable shorebirds in my Plovers Gallery.

Tule elk overlooking the ocean, Point Reyes National Seashore

This shot of a young bull tule elk is from the same trip to Point Reyes National Seashore as my previous post. Since this image was taken in February the rut was long over, but this young bull thought he was king of this large harem of females. I had seen his antlers rise over the hillside first, and waited for him to appear along the hill crest. This image is a great example of one of my favorite aspects of photographing tule elk at Point Reyes -- the ability to include the ocean as the backdrop. Along Drake's Beach, I've even seen elk hoof-prints in the sand, but I was never lucky enough to have a chance to photograph an elk right in front of the breakers.

View more photographs of elk and other wildlife on Tomales Point in Point Reyes National Seashore.

Soft tule elk ears, Point Reyes National Seashore

Earlier this week I took a little time to browse through some unsorted images from a few trips I had taken to Point Reyes National Seashore in early 2011. I had some really great outings during the winter there, and this particular trip was a real highlight. I saw a wide array of wildlife, from shorebirds to kestrels, skunks to bobcats, and of course, tule elk. On this cold morning there was a slight chance for ground level snow in the higher elevations of the Point Reyes peninsula, so I was out there for sunrise in the hope of finding such a rare scene before my lens. It turned out that it had only rained overnight, but the wildlife was incredible in the cool morning air.

I saw a large herd of tule elk near the road on Tomales Point, so I pulled my car off onto the shoulder and sat to watch them. In just a few minutes time, the whole herd had surrounded my car, and I was able to get an intimate view of their daily life. I rolled down all of my windows, and moved from seat to seat in the car for over a half hour before they slipped down a nearby hillside. It's such a privilege to be so close to a group of large animals like this, and I really enjoyed the chance to take some detailed portraits of the elk. In this shot, her head looks so soft and fluffy that I want to reach out and give her a scratch behind the ears (not literally of course, no good would come from trying that).

View many more images of tule elk in Point Reyes National Seashore in my Tule Elk Gallery.

Bellowing northern elephant seal, Año Nuevo State Reserve

One of the things that I miss most about not being in California for the start of a new year is that I can't take my annual day trip to see the northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Reserve. This became a tradition for my wife and me after we took a trip there during our second year in California, and it's just such an amazing place. Throughout my childhood I had been amazed by elephant seals in nature documentaries, and it's so cool to actually walk among them -- and not too many people realize that the largest mainland breeding colony of northern elephant seals in the U.S. is an hour and 15 minutes south of San Francisco. So if you live anywhere in Northern California, and haven't reserved tickets for your Seal Walk at Año Nuevo State Reserve yet, I highly recommend that you do so! To get you started, here's a link to the park's website.



These two shots are of a large bull northern elephant seal that we watched defending his beach in January of 2011. Just a few minutes prior to these images, we saw a rival seal storm the beach and get chased off by this one. While I snapped stills of the event, my wife caught the encounter on video and you can see it on this blog post from last year. Shooting these beasts was so much fun, and I can't wait until I have another chance to do so. If you've made it to the park sometime this year, please drop me a comment with a link to your photos -- I'd love to see them.

View more of my images of these impressive animals in my Elephant Seal Gallery.

Upper Yosemite Fall in the Snow, Yosemite National Park

This week I'm getting a fast reminder of what it means to be cold. After spending six years in the mild climate of coastal northern California, my blood had definitely thinned, and I was used to wearing the same layers of clothing more or less year round. Winter has finally reached Massachusetts this week though, and as I write this with the warm morning sunlight pouring through my windows, weather.com reports that my local temperature is 12°F! Yikes!

This shot of Upper Yosemite Fall is perhaps the coldest image I have in my files, since it at least includes a dusting of snow. Granted, this snowfall is from a late-season squall in mid-May, and temps in the valley were in the 40s, but still -- it looks kind of cold, right?

View more of my landscape images from Yosemite National Park.

Quail for the new year, Point Reyes National Seashore

On my first photography outing in 2011, I had a nice encounter with a California quail in Point Reyes National Seashore, and it turned out to be a great year of quail images for me. Since I haven't made it out with my camera yet in 2012, I thought I'd post a few shots of a quail in honor of my unofficial "Year of the Quail" last year.



These two shots are of the same bird in the same bush just moments apart, and I couldn't decide between them as to which I liked more. I decided to include both as another example of why its a good idea to rotate the lens when you have a cooperative subject. Each image has its own feel -- to me, the vertical frame is more about the bird and the horizontal is more about the quail as part of its environment -- yet they were taken just moments apart.

View more images of California quail in my Quail Gallery.

Submitted to World Bird Wednesday -- Follow the link to check out this week's posts!

Quail along the fence, Point Reyes National Seashore

A male California quail perched on top of a fence post in Point Reyes National Seashore. This quail is from the same trip as my previous post of the peeking sparrow, and I found the quail along the road to Drake's Beach. I have often seen quail dotting the fence posts along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard on my way to the outer reaches of the Point Reyes Peninsula, but it was fairly uncommon to see them along the short road to Drake's Beach. Perhaps its because there is not as much scrub vegetation out there, as its mostly pastures.

California quail are of my favorite species to photograph -- view more photos of these lovely birds in my Quail Gallery.

Peeking Sparrow, Point Reyes National Seashore

A white-crowned sparrow peeks over the branches of a coyote bush along the Abbott's Lagoon Trail in Point Reyes National Seashore last June. This shot is from a terrific early summer day spent in the park. There was a late-season rain system moving through the area that would bring rain later that day, so the sky was filled with gorgeous purple clouds and nice diffuse light.

View more photographs of sparrows in my Song Birds Gallery.

Young bull tule elk, Point Reyes National Seashore

I finally started going through the images from my final trip to Point Reyes National Seashore before moving to Massachusetts. On many occasions I had glanced at the folder in Lightroom, but couldn't bring myself to seriously go through my last set of new images from my favorite place in the world until yesterday. My wife accompanied me for my last trip to Point Reyes two days before we left California, and we decided to start with a hike along the Tomales Point Trail with the hope of photographing some rutting tule elk. As you can see, the day greeted us with the characteristic fog of Point Reyes, and really, no weather could have been more appropriate! That park taught me to love the fog, and especially the quiet solitude that it brings, and I spent so many mornings walking this trail hoping that the fog would lift just enough for photographs.

This was my favorite shot from the day, since there is a fair amount of emotion to the pose of the bull elk -- much like we were at the time, he was sensing the wind and deciding which direction to go (of course, his decision was based simply on the availability of female elk). Otherwise, I didn't get too many images that I was very happy with from this trip. We spent a fair amount of time watching a large bull guard his harem, and were able to listen to him bugle at many rival males in the area, but the images lacked the clarity that I favor due to the amount of moisture in the air. No regrets though -- Point Reyes gave me more than my fair share of favorite photographs over the years, it was wonderful to spend one last morning in the park with my wife. Even though I'm not sure when I'll make it back, I am already looking forward to greeting the sunrise (or a thick layer of fog) the next time I'm able to be in Point Reyes!

The tule elk in Point Reyes National Seashore are fantastic photographic subjects and you can view more in my Tule Elk Gallery.

Point Reyes National Seashore, My Happy Place

The sunrise over Inverness Ridge in Point Reyes National Seashore.

The Point Reyes Peninsula is a very special place to me. It’s where I go to relax, it’s where I clear my thoughts, it’s where I feel so alive as the breeze touches my face or the scents of the coast reach my nose. When I close my eyes and let my mind drift to my happy place, it’s always Point Reyes.

There is something about the landscape there that captivates me. I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly it is. There are so many amazing places in California, some well known and still spectacular (i.e., Yosemite National Park) and some under the radar that can be just as amazing (pick any beach along the Sonoma Coastline). But yet, as I realized that my time was running short in California, and that I would only be able to visit my favorite places or try out new ones just a handful of times, all else was forgotten and my eyes (and my heart) were set on Point Reyes.

I think the landscape is beautiful, and I know I’m not the only one (it was even recently recognized on ABC’s Good Morning America during their segment on the 10 most beautiful places in the country) – but when I take a step back, set my emotions aside, and try to think about what makes it so special, it’s hard to say exactly what it is. Sure, the coastline is spectacular with gorgeous bluffs and long beaches of soft sand, but you can find this in other places. And perhaps surprisingly, a lot of the land is agricultural pastures, and you’ll often see far more cows than anything else on a trip. But somehow, that just makes sense there. And the miles upon miles of old weathered fences pull me in every time. I once thought to myself, there are so many interesting fence posts here, that if I had the time, I could make a photographic book of just the beautiful patterns in the wood, the interesting mosses and lichens growing on them, the wildflowers that bloom along them, the raptors and quail that sit on the posts, and the songbirds that so elegantly perch along the wire, and maybe, just maybe a deer or elk leaping over one.

An old fence stretches along the dunes at North Beach

But set into this speckled land of fenced-off pastures are the rolling hills, the large sand dunes, and the small coastal mountains that add amazing depth and life to the landscape. Perhaps though for me, it’s not just that landscape that has gripped me so deeply. I know what wild things are out there, and the chance to spot one, and hopefully photograph one, always keeps me coming back for more.

So many times in the past few years, as I’m getting my camera ready the night before an outing, my wife will ask me where I’m headed the next morning. And with much regularity, I’ll say “Point Reyes.” She’ll often chuckle and reply, “Did I even have to ask?” It’s funny to me to realize that it took us a year of being in California to even take a hike there, but I can still remember that trip in much detail. After parking under a typical summer morning of heavy fog, we saw a quail for the first time near the trailhead, saw some tule elk off in the distance on a hillside, and we even saw a coyote (or maybe it was a grey fox?) through the binoculars. We sat on a large log that had long since turned into a piece of driftwood to eat our lunch along the beach, and we watched the pelicans skim the tops of the waves under the quiet foggy sky. Then, when we were ready to move on, we got back onto the trail, and the fog lifted and the blue skies came out – and we were in awe as we walked along the coast and saw the crystal clear sky reflected in the beautiful blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Me, excited to be in Point Reyes for the first time, but not yet knowing what this landscape would eventually mean to me.

While thinking about what I wanted to write in this post, I became curious about just how many times I’ve been to the park. A quick scan though my photo archives reveals that since our inaugural hike in 2006, I’ve been back to Point Reyes some 60 additional times. What is it that keeps pulling me back again and again? Shouldn’t I have gotten bored with walking the same trails, seeing the same sights, and driving the same roads?

A while back I read an interesting post on Greg Russell’s blog, which linked to a wonderful post about someone’s love of a specific desert landscape. In the comments, Greg replied back to me about how interesting it is that certain landscapes can capture the imagination and that he “thinks, perhaps, like choosing a mate; we need a fit with a complementary personality. Landscapes or people, it’s all the same…” This idea rang so true for me with Point Reyes.

A foggy sunset along Kehoe Beach in 2007.

There is something in the personality of the park that just connects with me. I’ve been to many parks in California, and I’ve really enjoyed all of them. But there is just something so special to me about this one piece of land that it just keeps pulling me back. Perhaps it’s not worth my time to try to pinpoint what it is that I love about that park so much. But rather, just to enjoy the fact that I have a place that is so special to me, and that always makes me smile when I think of it. Point Reyes is my Happy Place, and I like to think that no matter how often or how little I’m able to visit throughout my lifetime, it will always give me that warm feeling of freedom inside my heart when thoughts of it cross my mind.


If you're interested to see more of Point Reyes, please visit my Point Reyes National Seashore Special Collections.

Caspian tern taking flight, Point Reyes National Seashore

While strolling Limantour Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore earlier this month, I was disappointed to have not found any flocks of shorebirds. However, once I crossed over to the estuary-side, I was treated to a flock of 20 or so Caspian terns relaxing on the exposed mudflats. I've often had a hard time getting close to any terns, but I decided to go for it with these birds since they didn't fly away at the sight of my coming through the cut in the dunes.



I did a lot of belly-crawling to get close to the flock. I decided that I didn't want to push it, so I started sliding along the wet mud from quite a distance away. The wet pants and sand in my pockets was totally worth it though, as I was able to creep close enough to get some nearly full frame images. For a while I just watched them nap and preen, but eventually they started to stir, and every now and then a bird would take flight. I tried my best to get the lens onto an active bird as quickly as possible, and while I missed a bunch I was lucky to be looking at this one as it took to the air, and it happened to call out while it did.



Submitted to World Bird Wednesday -- follow the link to check out this week's posts.

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To all of my local followers -- I'm trying to cut down on the stock of photos that I'll be moving with me to Boston. Thus, I'm having a 50% off sale of in-stock prints ($22 for 11x14 prints and $18 for 8x10 prints). To see a sampling of the availability and get more info, see my Craigslist posting.

Feel free to email me with questions or to make arrangements to purchase a photo. I'll be in the Berkeley area until next Wed.

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Late summer sanderling, Point Reyes National Seashore

Limantour Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore is one of my favorite locations to look for shorebirds. There are a few miles of beach balanced on a narrow spit of sand that has the Drake's Bay of the Pacific Ocean on one side, and Drake's Estero, a tidal estuary, on the other side. It's a perfect place for shorebirds to stop and feed during their migration, and many also winter there. Knowing that the migration would be picking up, I took a few trips to Limantour in early August hoping to find some shorebirds still in their summer colors. Unfortunately, I was mostly skunked on my trips, and only once did I find a cooperative flock to photograph.

On this day, there was a small group of maybe 25 birds that were feeding along the shoreline, and after gaining their trust, I walked for a few miles with them as they worked their way up the beach. The way it would work is that I would slowly walk and keep pace with the birds, then when they would find a place to stop and feed, I'd get just a bit ahead of them before dropping onto my stomach in the middle of the flock. I usually tried to have a few birds ahead of me and some behind, since I knew that those that were behind me would eventually run right past my lens to get back with the forward birds. I'll note that you really have to have a flock get used to you before you can get up and down with them around since they normally get spooked if you change your posture near them. It took quite a while of belly-crawling close to them, and just hanging out on the edge of their group to win over their trust. But once I did, it really didn't bother them to have me slowly dropping down onto the sand as they fed (moving in super-slow motion as you drop from standing to the ground is imperative as well). These are the kinds of interactions that I treasure on my photographic outings, when you can truly gain the trust of the wildlife, and have them accept you as part of their world.

So after walking down the beach with them, and lying down in the sand like this perhaps 20-25 times, they were really comfortable in getting close to me, and I was able to get some full-frame views of the birds. Unfortunately, as we made our way up the beach we eventually crossed over the invisible line that separates the dog friendly part of the beach from the protected area. Soon enough I could see an owner with her dogs off in the distance heading my way, and as they came closer, my encounter ended abruptly. Not that the dogs were that interested in the birds, but the sanderlings wanted no part of having two four-legged visitors near the flock.

See more photos of these adorable peeps in my Sandpipers Gallery

Quail at sunset, Point Reyes National Seashore

A male California quail is kissed by the golden light of sunset as he sits on the old gnarled branches of a coyote bush near Abbott's Lagoon in Point Reyes National Seashore.

View more images of one of my favorite birds in my Quail Gallery.

Big bull, bigger news

This has been a busy summer for me, as my regular readers may have guessed due to my infrequent posts, so it may come as no surprise that there is big news in my future. I will be submitting my Ph.D. dissertation in the next week or two (in environmental engineering, if you were curious), which will be the culmination of a wonderful six-year journey filled with hard work, great challenges and successes, fantastic friendships, and some very fond memories.

In the beginning of September, my wife and I will be uprooting from California and embarking on a cross-country road trip to the Boston area, which will be our new home. While I do not yet have a position lined up, I am excited at the prospect of beginning my professional career in conservation there. I hope that I’ll be able to continue to find time to photograph wildlife in the Northeast, and I will definitely be keeping the blog as active as I can. I have plenty of images from California waiting to be posted, but I suppose I’ll need to come up with a new tag-line for the blog, since I’ll no longer be "seeking inspiration from the natural beauty of just northern California." Also, if you have any favorite bird or wildlife locations in Massachusetts (or the surrounding area) please let me know in the comments or by email. I’m definitely looking forward to finding some new wetlands, forests, and beaches to explore!

On our travels to the east, we’ll be spending around a week in Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks – two places that I have never visited, but that have been on my wish list for a long time. I’m looking forward to the wildlife photography opportunities there, and my wonderful bride has already agreed to wake up well before sunrise each morning so we can seek out wildlife during the golden hours. I probably won’t have too much of a chance to blog while we’re on the road, but hopefully I’ll come back with plenty of images to post throughout the fall!

For the next few weeks, I’ll continue to post new images whenever I get the chance while I wrap up many loose ends here before the move, including squeezing in as many trips to Point Reyes National Seashore as I can! As always, thank you for taking the time to read my blog and for your comments and support over the past few years!

Cheers,
Pat