I had only recently acquired the kind of camera equipment necessary for serious avifauna documentation when one fall morning as I was walking through the village, 20 pounds of camera, lens and tripod slung over my shoulder, a flock of Pine Grosbeaks descended all around me in the willows, scrub alders and salmonberry brakes along the dirt road. I knew the species from books but had never encountered them. Keen to get photographs, I set up to shoot. No sooner was I in position than one of their tribe flew over, rested for a moment on the long lens of my camera, and then hopped onto on my head. A passage from Walden came immediately to mind:

  “I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village
  garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulette I could have worn.” (Thoreau, Walden, “Winter Animals”)

I quickly made photographs documenting the species’ presence in that part of the world (David Narver did not observe them in the Chignik Drainage during his field work in the early 1960’s, and they are listed as “rare” or “uncommon” on peninsular checklists), but the species proved to be common in the years we were at The Lake and year by year I improved on those first pictures. As I continue sorting through the many thousands of photographs comprising “The Chignik Files,” I will show other photos of these beautiful finches… the Cardinal of the Far North.