Tule elk grazing in the fog, Point Reyes National Seashore

My nascent photographic vision was developed under the coastal fog of Point Reyes, and now that I’m settled in the Northeast, I don’t have nearly as many opportunities to experience ground-level fog like this. Standing in the middle of a thick cloud is perhaps a bit heavier than would be truly helpful for photography, but it does add a different feel of weight and solitude to the story told by a photo. I don’t know if sounds are actually dampened in fog, but looking back at these images, my mind’s interpretation is a quiet scene with only the sound of elk footfalls softly stepping through the wet grass.

Quail on a fencepost, Point Reyes National Seashore

Three years ago, I was back out in California with a few days to spend on photography. I posted a handful of images from this trip last year, but there are a bunch still waiting their turn in my upload folder. Since I’ve shared a lot of baby plovers recently, this seems like a nice time to break things up a bit by tapping into my July archives. A California quail on a fence post is hard for me to pass up when I’m in Point Reyes National Seashore, so these seem like a logical place to start.

Least tern chick with parent, Sandy Point State Reservation

It’s been so much fun to observe the least tern and piping plover chicks at Sandy Point State Reservation. Having the chance to see both in such close proximity makes the difference between the life histories of the species so striking. The plover chicks appear curious and brave, moving quickly across the beach looking for food on their own, occasionally returning to brood under a watchful parent. In contrast, the young terns are clearly more dependent as they wait for their next meal to be brought back and they appear rather awkward as they run across the sand. Regardless of how they are raised, both are certainly adorable in their down feathers!

Curious piping plover chick, Sandy Point State Reservation

Photographing piping plover chicks can be so rewarding since they're so curious. On many occasions during my recent trips to Sandy Point State Reservation, I’d get myself positioned in the sand a good distance away from the plovers, only to have them approach really close. For better or worse, they seem to be inquisitive about what the photographer is doing lying in the sand. It can be challenging to keep them in frame with a long telephoto at close range, so sometimes it’s worth just pulling up from my viewfinder to enjoy their remarkable cuteness with unaided eyes.

Least tern chick at sunrise, Sandy Point State Reservation

A young least tern chick enjoys the comfort of its parent’s embrace at sunrise. Its sibling was tucked under the far wing, but perhaps this one enjoyed feeling the warmth of the first early rays rising above the Atlantic. At one point, it ran out onto the sand, apparently thinking that its other parent was coming back with a fish, but once that moment passed it came back to snuggle in again.

Piping plover chick at sunrise, Sandy Point State Reservation

The early morning alarms to get to the refuge entrance by sunrise can be rough in the weeks around the solstice, but it's always worth it when you have a chance to spend time with these adorable chicks bathed in the first light of the day.

Piping plover hug, Sandy Point State Reservation

The brooding behavior of piping plovers makes for such special photographic moments. While the precocial chicks are incredibly independent on the beach, they still check-in with their parents regularly to brood. If you're in the right place, this gives a great opportunity to capture short moments of direct interaction between the chick and its parent. In the photo above, a young chick approaches with the clear intention of snuggling under those insulating feathers. Having the two birds looking directly at each other adds a nice tenderness to the interaction.

I really love the two photo below though, after the two chicks have nestled in under the parent's wing. You can see the two small beaks peeking out from under the feathers, and I just have the sense that this must be what plover smiles would look like, in the embrace of a warm parental hug.

Co-parenting piping plover chicks, Sandy Point State Reservation

According to the field guides, it can be a little challenging to identify the sex of Atlantic Coast piping plovers. The notable difference is that the black brow bar and collar are more "bold" in the males. While I have generally not tried to distinguish this in my plover photography before, I had a unique opportunity to differentiate the mother and father of a parenting pair on a recent trip to Sandy Point State Reservation. This piping plover couple was caring for a brood of four chicks, and both parents were participating the family activities. It was interesting to see them actively trade off responsibilities between the male and female. This offered the chance to directly compare images of the two birds caring for the chicks. And in fact, one did have a much bolder mark between its brows, nearly touching the eyes (the male, pictured above), while the female's was more subtle (pictured below). Wishing the best of luck to these plover parents!

Willets in a tree, Parker River National Wildlife Refuge

While driving the road down the island in Parker River NWR, I'm always scanning for birds, hoping to find something interesting. The flight of two shorebirds caught my eye and I pulled over onto the shoulder to watch them pass. I was amazed to see them both land in a pine tree! I absolutely love shorebirds, and I've spent countless hours watching them -- but this was a totally new behavior to me. What a fun experience to see them perched on a tree branch, as if they were song birds. I'm not sure if a predator spooked them or what exactly was happening, and after maybe 10 minutes or so, they flew off again. A delightfully unexpected encounter for sure!

Room for one more? Piping plover chicks on Plum Island

This piping plover father was doing his best to keep his chicks safe and warm as they explored the tidal flats. In the photo above, two of his four chicks are nestled in to brood, and the third chick has just arrived. It also wanted to join-in, and tried to figure out how to get under those warm feathers as well.

It seemed to find a comfortable spot alongside its siblings by jamming itself under the wing too.

But then things got even more complicated when the fourth chick arrived.

It too wanted to warm up under the father plover, but there was limited space available for everyone.

The father seems to be going along with things here...

.... but I can't help but interpret this look as the piping plover version of "You've got to be kidding me!"

The dad seemed to sense this was getting a bit out of control and hopped off of his four chicks.

Once free, he then ran off to the warmer dry sand further up the beach and called his chicks to follow and try again.

Shared with Wild Bird Wendesday.

Piping plover chick ready to brood, Sandy Point State Reservation

My successful trips to Plum Island this year so far have been under overcast skies. While I enjoy the flexibility that this even light allows for wildlife photography, there is something special about moments that occur in the warm glow of the rising sun. Here are two images of a young chick looking for the right spot to brood under it's parent from a clear morning back in 2015. In the top frame, you can see the tiny legs of its siblings already taking up prime locations underwing.

Piping plover father and chick, Sandy Point State Reservation

It’s such a treat to see the interaction of a young animal and its parent. For piping plovers, who are responsible for feeding themselves from birth, a critical role of the parent is protection and shelter from the elements through brooding. Before these images were taken, this young chick was nestled under the feathers of its father. I would generally observe the chicks to stretch and run off to scour the beach almost immediately after pulling out from below the warm embrace. This particular chick seemed to want some additional reassurance this time though, snuggling up to its dad for quite a while before heading off again on its own.

Inquisitive piping plover, Sandy Point State Reservation

Summer trips to Sandy Point State Reservation always have the chance for piping plover chicks in the nesting colony there. I suspected that I was going to be a little too early for chicks when I took this trip on this first weekend in June, but it’s still fun to see the adults running around the beach. As I was attempting to work my way into a good position for the lone semipalmated sandpiper I encountered, this overly curious piping plover came into very close range to check out the photographer lying in the sand. It’s staccato stop-start running brought it into full-frame portrait realm, before coming so close that I hand to pull back from my telephoto since it was well-within the minimum focusing distance. Curious shorebirds are the best!

Least tern rival, Sandy Point State Reservation

This series of photos shows one of the more interesting least tern interactions I observed earlier this month at Sandy Point State Reservation on Plum Island. The female was sitting in the wrack line well outside of the temporary fence erected around the main breeding colony. I approached carefully and took up a spot lying in the sand to observe her in the hopes that a male would bring in a fish to share. It didn’t take long for one to arrive. He showed off his prize, but she really didn’t seem interested in taking it from him. He persisted in offering the fish for a while, from multiple angles, and I laughed this off as another rejection of a male’s advances (a common theme on the beach that morning).

Eventually, she settled in to rest, and rather than flying off to find a different female to impress, he scarfed down the fish and took up a position nearby. At this point, I started to suspect that perhaps they were already a pair, and she was just full of fish that morning. From my position in the sand, I enjoyed watching her do a little preening before tucking in her beak and closing her eyes.

Before long, another male noisily arrived to offer his catch to her, and the first male quickly jumped to the occasion to defend his (apparent) relationship.

There was rapid-fire action of vocalizations and posturing, with the female literally in the middle of it all.

During a brief standoff, it wasn't clear to me which way this fight would go.

Without any physical interaction, the couple thwarted the interloper, who flew off to show his fish to someone else, and they both settled back in. I quietly wished the tern couple luck, and carefully crawled away in the sand before wandering further up the beach.

Semipalmated sandpiper on the tidal flats, Sandy Point State Reservation

A very low morning tide opened up a huge swatch of tidal flats at Sandy Point State Reservation. The small mounds and dark sand in this region of the beach made for an interesting setting for the lone semipalmated sandpiper I encountered. In my trip preparations the night before, the eBird reports from the previous few days had sightings of flocks with 150+ semipalmated sandpipers and dunlin. Given the time of year, there was a great chance that they’d be showing some of their summer colors as well. While I had hoped that the low tide would keep the flocks foraging on the flats around the southern edge of the island, as it turned out, they happened to be further up the estuary while I was in the park (which I observed on a quick stop at the Bill Forward Bird Blind on my drive out). It’s hard to pass up a chance to spend time with a sandpiper in non-basic plumage, and this individual gave me a couple of fleeting opportunities as it traversed the flats.

Least tern courtship at Sandy Point State Reservation

Dreary fog and low visibility did not deter the courtship rituals of a large flock of least terns at Sandy Point State Reservation earlier this month. The start of breeding season is such an exciting time of year on the southern tip of Plum Island, regardless of the weather. While I saw a handful of piping plovers running over the exposed tidal flats, the highlight of this trip was definitely having so many opportunities to enjoy the fish-offering antics of least terns. While I saw a couple of successful transfers between terns, the majority of the interactions I witnessed involved an excited male flashing its catch to an otherwise uninterested female. It was rather comical to watch the females repeatedly turn away as the male desperately tried to impress. Eventually, he would give up and fly off to try to impress someone else.

Harbor seal on kelp covered rock, Point Lobos State Reserve

A walk along the northern trails of Point Lobos State Reserve is always a nice treat. This park tends to fill up to capacity frequently, but most of the traffic (both car and foot) stays toward the main trails in the southern side of the peninsula. On this summer trip, we enjoyed a nice view of a herd of harbor seals resting on the rocks just offshore in Moss Cove. Their colors ranged from sun-bleached gray to this particularly handsome darker black. The kelp covered rock was an interesting setting for a photograph, but even in the short time we were watching them, the tide was visibly rising and its lush green island was soon to disappear.

California quail fledglings calling (almost), Point Reyes National Seashore

California quail are one of my favorite species to photograph, and it was a treat to get to see some fledglings on my last summer trip to Point Reyes National Seashore. On several previous occasions, I had seen younger adorable downy fluff balls scurrying around behind their parents, and this was the first time I had some really nice looks at slightly older fledglings.

The Abbotts Lagoon area is a hotspot for finding quail in Point Reyes. In fact, I often didn't even need to get out of parking lot, or even the car, to find some in front of my lens. Since they can be rather skittish, it actually works quite well to use the car as a mobile blind to get close as they stand on the fence railings and bounce around the coyote brush along the parking lot. That's what I was doing on this rather dreary morning in the park. There was a small covey hanging out along the fenceline, so I drove up slowly, rolled the windows down, and parked the car in a nice position to observe them out the passenger side window.

As I was watching the group, I heard the distinct call of "Chi-Ca-Go" from behind my vehicle on the driver's side. Though notably, it was a rather small rendition of a quail song, and when I turned around in my seat, I saw this pair of fledglings on the branches. I had long been chasing a photograph of California quail in song, which I finally managed to capture on a 2014 trip -- but I had never imagined the opportunity to capture young birds doing the same. Unfortunately, to have a chance, I needed to contort my body to point my lens out of the opposite rear window to get the right angle before the moment had passed. I strained my body to get into a reasonable stable position and waited for another chance.

California quail can put on such a show when they are calling out -- throwing their heads back with abandon -- but that means the beak and eyes are moving quickly. On this morning, it was just too quick for my lens under the deep overcast light, and the frame above is the closest I came with any bit of sharpness to the singing head. I had only a few chances to capture the song before this young pair scuttled back down into the brush, and I'm disappointed to have failed to capture a clean shot. That said, these unexpected moments are what is so fun about wildlife photography, and even without something to add to my portfolio, it's an encounter I won't soon forget.

Mule deer behind the dunes, Point Reyes National Seashore

The short road to the North Beach parking lot in Point Reyes National Seashore always feels to me like it has a lot of potential. There's nice tall grasses on the backside of the dunes, with splashes of color from the abundant wildflowers. I've seen a fair number of raptors there, occasionally a coyote, but the most likely find are the abundant mule deer in the area. This doe was browsing among the dune grass under the thick morning fog. She gave me a couple of curious glances before sauntering across the road to the other side.

Tule elk in wild radish, Point Reyes National Seashore

While the peak of the tule elk rut in Point Reyes National Seashore is generally in late August and into September, this handsome bull was keeping track of his harem in early July. It made for some nice photographic opportunities as the herd grazed among the late summer wildflowers (predominantly wild radish) on the hillside along the road to Drake's Beach. From this vantage point he was keeping track of the other bulls bugling in the area. In the top frame, he's listening carefully as a rival bull sounds out across the valley, and in the bottom frame he's responding with his own call (through a mouth full of grass!).

Curious American avocet, Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge

The travel itinerary of my 2016 trip to California include a few nights in the South Bay, which meant I was in a great position to look for American avocets. In my opinion, these are by far the most elegant shorebird species, and I greatly miss having the chance to find them here in the Northeast. They're especially photogenic in their breeding colors, and it was a treat to encounter salt ponds filled with them at Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. This location was one of my early favorites on San Francisco Bay, and I had a handful of spectacular trips there when I was learning the ropes of shorebird photography a decade ago. The park can be a little tough for eye-level photography since the trails are on elevated dikes around the ponds, but on this day the water level was down far enough that I was able to get low in the mud at a few places. This curious avocet waded fairly close to where I was set up, and the old degrading pilings were an interesting setting to contrast the elegance of the bird.

Shared with Wild Bird Wednesday -- follow the link to see this week's posts.

The Magic of Point Reyes National Seashore

During the two years that I let the blog go dormant in 2016-2017 I actually had a couple of really nice photographic outings. I was even able to return to California for about a week in the summer of 2016, which included a couple of days spent in Point Reyes National Seashore. It wasn't the most productive trip photographically, but it felt so great to be back in my old footsteps on those well-trodden trails. For those of you that have followed my work, you already know that Point Reyes National Seashore holds a special place in my heart -- and in some ways I can't believe it's taken me this long to share some some images from the trip.

July isn't necessary the best time to be in the park for photography, I personally think that the fall is ideal with the shorebird migrations and tule elk rut, but I was treated to some spectacular fog-less summer sunsets on this trip. While living in California, I most often visited the park for sunrise, which usually involved a heavy cover the marine layer fog, so it was a treat to have the warm colors of sunset on multiple evenings (although I almost didn't know what to do with the light!).

While driving out Sir Francis Drake Boulevard on so many prior trips to the park, my eye had often been drawn to the gorgeous rolling agricultural valleys. On many occasions I pulled the car over, swapped on my landscape lens and attempted to capture some of what had caught my eye. I was never really able to do the scene justice though, especially since so many of my trips were under the coastal fog. I love overcast light for wildlife, but it really left the landscapes feeling flat and far less interesting than then actually were. I was driving around the park on this summer evening while the light was absolutely spectacular, and hoping to find something to photograph before it was gone. I struck out on sighting any wildlife in the golden glow, but as I passed this valley, I was completely drawn in. The last rays were fading fast, and I knew I wouldn't have time to set up my tripod before it was gone. So I rolled the window down, leaned across the passenger seat and fired off a few frames. I love that the low hanging sun left a tiny sliver of "alpenglow" across the top of the coastal hillside. That's part of the magic of Point Reyes National Seashore -- it's given me fleeting moments that are so special and unexpected on so many visits.

While I was taking the photograph above, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that I could see myself in the passenger-side mirror. Being a solo trip into the park, I didn't have any other photographs of myself there, so I took advantage of the opportunity to make an unorthodox selfie from this unexpected scene in one of my favorite places.

After spending the night in Inverness Park, I set out for a sunrise hike at Abbotts Lagoon. Just like old times, I began the day as the first car in the parking lot as the daylight was just beginning to break. It was wonderful to breathe in the cool coastal air, and to be invigorated by the feeling of the warm rising sun under clear skies. This is a wonderful place to look for quail and not too far from the parking lot I found a handsome male keeping an eye on his covey from an old scrag of coyote brush (which I posted yesterday for my 500th blog post). I slowly worked my way closer, trying to get clean shot of the quail who was glowing in the warm sunrise light. In the meantime a second car arrived at the trailhead and another photographer set off down the trail behind me. As he approached, he politely waited to pass until the quail had decided to hop from its perch and head into the brush. Further down the trail, at the bridge between the freshwater and brackish lagoons, I encountered the photographer again. We chatted briefly, and he shared his new found love for the park. It seemed that this amazing landscape had recently cast a spell on him, the same as it had on me nearly a decade ago. He was now regularly driving up from the East Bay on the weekends to search for wildlife -- which sounded awfully familiar to my ears! We chatted briefly about the gravitational pull of the park, and neither of us could easily express a specific reason for why it captured our creative imagination so strongly over all of the other great places in the Bay Area. But perhaps the vague mystery of that deep-felt love for that beautiful peninsula is part of the magic all the same.

Post #500: California quail in Point Reyes National Seashore

In the fall of 2009, I started this blog with my first post of semipalmated plovers at Point Reyes National Seashore. At this time, I was in the middle of graduate school and had found that escaping to the coast with my camera on the weekends was critical to managing my stress levels. I had taken my first nature photographs over two years before that, and was regularly sharing pictures on Flickr, but decided that it would be nice to branch out into my own corner of the web. I didn't really know what I had intended to do with a blog, but I was inspired by the work of others like John Wall who was blogging about his explorations of similar places in the Bay Area, and myriad other California photographers (like Jim Goldstein, Gary Crabbe, G Dan Mitchell, and so many others) that were sharing their work on the web.

When I started this blog, posting a photo while I ate breakfast was a pretty regular part of my daily routine, and over the first few years, I added about 150 posts per year. At that rate, I figured I'd reach 500 posts in no time! But a move to Massachusetts and start of my career reduced my rate to about a third of that for a while, and over the last two years almost to zero. Yet I still find myself drawn to sharing my work through this venue.

Over the past few weeks, I've read back through each of my 499 previous posts, which brings up a cacophony of feelings -- from bittersweet nostalgia for my favorite places in California and being able to visit them regularly, to joy of remembering some amazing wildlife encounters (some that I vividly remember, and others that I had almost forgotten), to relative embarrassment of the quality of some of my earlier pictures. I was getting out with my camera so much more regularly during the first few years, which led to a more temporal aspect to my blogging, and it's fun to now have a narrated log of my weekend trips from that time period of my life.

As I roll through the beginning of my tenth calendar year of photo blogging, finally reaching the round number milestone of 500 posts, I guess I still don't know what I'm really trying to accomplish. I've long since passed the naive dream of being read by a huge number of subscribers, but still feel drawn to have a place to share my experiences with the incredible natural world around me. Seeking a connection with nature is one of the major things that drives me as a person, and I want to continue to seek out these experiences for my own self-interest. But beyond that, I like to share these small glimpses with anyone else who cares to find them. I know from personal experience how photographs have the power to connect people with our natural world, to cause them to care, and allow a window to share in a joint experience even if the observer wasn't physically present. I wish deeply for others to care about our environment and the amazing creatures that inhabit it, and any small thing I can do to spread that connection is worth it to me.

As I think about what it means to move forward, I'm sure that my opportunities for serious photography will continue to be limited. However, I know that even a decade after I first picked up a camera with the intent of photographing the natural world, I still find that when the cacophony of noise that is modern life becomes overwhelming, my mind yearns for the simplicity of a shared moment with a wild animal from behind my lens. Wildlife photography is meditation for me, and I hope that having a place to share my artistic expression of these experiences (even if really only for myself) will continue to drive my pursuit of seeking out those powerful moments, no matter how frequent or infrequent the opportunities arise.

Warm spring light, Piping plover at Sandy Point State Reservation

Developing my photographic vision under the cool marine layer in the San Francisco Bay Area has turned me into a sucker for overcast skies, but I still enjoy a lovely golden hour when I have the chance. The last few days in Massachusetts have been gorgeous -- with unseasonably warm temperatures and spectacular evening light! It's been a pleasure to get out for few short walks after work to enjoy this wonderful taste of springtime, and it's great to notice the days getting longer. Even if it is still February, spring is in the air at least for another day or two.

This photograph is from a springtime trip I took last year to Sandy Point State Reservation. There were a handful of piping plovers cruising the beach, and I was able to get a few close encounters with this particularly curious bird as it searched for a meal before losing the daylight.