Tag Archives: nature

Downward Fox – The New in the New Year & Life a Little Closer to the Quick

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Downward Fox – There’s nothing quite as satisfying in the moment as a good stretch at the beginning of a day. Wherever you are, we hope your day is going well.

Between the two camps regarding testing new ideas at the beginning of each new year – the one camp advocating for trying new things, the other camp taking Eeyore’s “What’s the point?” position -, we are firmly in the camp advocating for trying out new things. I emphasize here trying out new things. We are not fans of New Year’s Resolutions. The very term, “resolution,” feels like a lead weight – leading to the even weightier prospect of “failure.”

Simply giving something a try – a gentle approach to change – is more suited to us. And so for the year 2024 I’ve begun (nearly) daily morning meditation. A few minutes of calm stillness, seated/kneeling on a low, cushioned wooden meditation bench, doing my best to empty my mind for a little while, sometimes allowing a selection of Mark Isham’s light orchestral arrangements to play in the background, other times keeping things as quiet as I can, is proving to be refreshing.

Additionally, we’ve both decided to go alcohol (and marijuana) free. It’s been about two months now. So far, so good. Surprising to both of us is that we haven’t missed the beers, wines and spirits that have often been integral to our gustatory and social lives. Of course, there is money to be saved by such a venture. And increasingly the scientific/medical consensus is recognizing that there is no health benefit to alcohol, that even modest consumption appears to be somewhat harmful. In good health but older now, having recently purchased a home (and imagining new art for this home), we’re mindful of both of those factors. But they weren’t the primary motivations behind this decision.

One of the happiest moments in our shared life these past few years occurred toward the very end of our bicycle trek in Hokkaido. We had just pushed up a long hill – a small mountain, actually – and then had the reward of the effortless sunshine summer day warm breeze on our faces coast down the other side.

In that moment, we were transported back to sheer joy of freedom total immersion in a moment childhood memories. Way leads to way. Thought to thought. We embraced and enjoyed experiencing wines and other drinks in that season. But all of that had become a distraction, on several levels. Time to experience something else. It has been an enjoyable two months… completely sober in every moment, and thus, at least for us, living more in the moment, a little closer to the quick of Now.

Sure Looks Like Fun

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Photograph of Native Alutiiq girls colorfully reflected on lake ice as they jig for fish on frozen Chignik Lake, Alaska.
Sure Looks Like Fun
With salmon roe for bait and a small jig on the end of their line, these girls were hoping for some of The Lake’s Dolly Varden Char and Pond Smelt. I’m not sure they caught much, but it sure looks like fun.
Chignik Lake, 1/10/17

Loafin’

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Close-up portrait of a Sea Otter loafing in the harbor at Seward, Alaska.
Loafin’ Sometimes Sea Otters hanging around in harbors become quite accustomed to humans. For this photograph, I got down on my belly and lowered my arms and camera over the side of a dock. Unable to look into the view finder, I let the camera’s autofocus do its job. They’re awfully cute. Seward Harbor, Alaska, 6/25/13

Spring Angels

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Spring Angels
Returning Tundra Swans, flying above the Chignik River – Chignik Lake, March 17, 2017

At first it seemed counterintuitive to process this picture captured on a blue sky spring afternoon as a monochrome image, but I like the moodiness. I don’t know… what do you think?

On A Frozen Sea

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Sphere and Pyramid
The Chukchi Sea, April 21, 2012

In late winter and early spring, our Inupiat friends in Point Hope began talking about “breaking trail” across the frozen Chukchi Sea so that snow machines (snow mobiles) and hondas (ATVs) could be driven out to leads (open lanes in the ice) in order to set up whaling camps. “Breaking trail?” Informed by our experiences with freshwater lakes, we wondered, “Can’t you just drive out across a smooth blanket of ice?”

Well, as we learned, a frozen sea isn’t like that. As ice forms and expands and is pushed around by winds and currents, sheets separate (creating leads) and later are pushed together again, the resulting pressure ridges can heave up massive jumbles of jigsaw ice. Some of the chunks are as large as a garage. This was all new to us the first time we hiked out to a camp. In the above photo our eyes are drawn to an otherworldly sphere and pyramid lit blue in pre-dawn light.

Rothko Sunrise, Point Hope

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Sunrise, Sunset – Point Hope, Alaska November 19, 2011

One hundred twenty-five miles north of the Arctic Circle, on this date there still remained four hours and three minutes of daylight in Point Hope’s sky. This late in the year the Chukchi Sea was blanketed in ice, the sun barely ascending above the horizon. From November 18 to 19, nine minutes and 52 seconds of daylight were lost. The following day, ten minutes were lost – an additional eight seconds. The next day, 10 more seconds of light disappeared. And so it continued, darkness gathering momentum toward December 6 when the sun vanished, leaving only a glow on the horizon. The sun remained down for 30 days until January 6 when it peeked above the frozen sea at 2:03 PM and remained barely visible for 19 minutes and 20 seconds.

I first encountered art in the style of Mark Rothko’s colorfield paintings (a painting by an art student at the local college) in my teens. Like many others, I was fascinated by the juxtaposition of colors. I would shoot this scene differently now… but will most likely never get the opportunity. Happy to have been there, seen it, and come away with this photograph despite its imperfections.

The Swans at Broad Pool

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The Swans at Broad Pool Chignik River, 3/16/17
Each March, residents of Chignik Lake begin checking Broad Pool for early signs of spring – arriving flocks of Tundra Swans. The best swan viewing occurs in years when the river is partially iced over and therefore closed to boat traffic. This expansive pool has abundant Water Crowfoot, an aquatic vegetation preferred by swans and dabbling ducks. The swans, which mate for life and can live to be over 20 years old, will rest here and in other quiet water in the Chignik Drainage for up to a few weeks before breaking off in pairs and heading to tundra nesting sites on the Bristol Bay (northwest) side of the Alaska Peninsula. As human activity continues to cause the planet to warm and years of ice become fewer on the Chignik, Broad Pool may no longer provide a suitable resting place for returning waterfowl. Things are changing… fast. Get out and observe, photograph, document.

At First Sight…

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Portrait of a mated pair of Sandhill Cranes facing each other in a field of flowers somewhere along the Alaska-Canada Highway... a Valentine's Card, #love.
At First Sight… We came upon this pair of Sandhill Cranes somewhere along the Al-Can – the Alaska-Canada Highway – on a drive north to Alaska. I’m always reminded of my first date with Barbra… the pink jeans she wore. I like the way the male crane’s beak is hanging open… a proper response.
Happy Valentine’s Day – for all you love
July 20, 2012

Spring Green

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Spring Green Female in the lead and the trailing drake’s head lit up in the iridescent green that has earned the species the vernacular sobriquet “greenhead,” a pair of Mallards coast in for a landing on the Chignik’s Broad Pool. About a mile downriver from the village of Chignik Lake, the pool covers over 16 acres – approximately the size of 13 football fields including the end zones. Shallow and weedy, it is gathering place for returning springtime migrants such as Tundra Swans and genus Anus ducks (Mallards, Green-winged Teal, American Wigeons and Pintails). Slowly going through The Chignik Files, if and when I come across a good picture of Broad Pool, I’ll be sure to publish it. Since I’m in a March file right now, I am certain there will be photos of Tundra Swans, so look for a photo or two of these regal harbingers of spring in the near future. (March 14, 2017)

Knighted by a Finch

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Male Pine Grosbeak, Chignik Lake, Alaska, February 3, 2017
Actually not grosbeaks at all but a member of the finch family, their large beaks are useful for feeding on leaf buds, much as ptarmigan which have similarly robust beaks.

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.