Tag Archives: photograph

Plant a Sitka Spruce, Get a Finch… or when is a new species an invasive species?

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Common Redpoll, Sitka Spruce Grove
Chignik Lake, February 3, 2017

Up and down Southwest Alaska’s Alaska Peninsula, Redpolls, Siskins, Crossbills and Grosbeaks – all members of the finch tribe – have typically been marked as uncommon, rare or absent, breeding in small numbers here and there but generally not species one expects to encounter on the windswept peninsula. However, as trees – particularly alders -, have become increasingly abundant in that part of the world, so too have the finches. Seeds of the tiny alder cones are relished by Redpolls; the tender leaf buds by Pine Grosbeaks. But nowhere has the recent emergence of trees more dramatically impacted avian life than in the village of Chignik Lake where 70-some years ago Sitka Spruce trees were transplanted from seedlings gathered on Kodiak Island.

Some of the spruce trees at The Lake now tower over the landscape, producing both shelter and food for a wide variety of birds. The seeds of mature cones draw Pine Siskins, Hoary and Common Redpolls, White-winged and Red Crossbills, Black-capped Chickadees, Black-billed Magpies and several species of sparrow. While they’re still soft and reddish-purple, immature cones are feasted on by Pine Grosbeaks. Meanwhile, the variety of invertebrates that have moved into the little groves of spruce trees provide sustenance for Downy Woodpeckers, Pacific Wrens, Golden-crowned Kinglets and Yellow Warblers. Great Horned Owls roost and nest in the dark shadows of spruce bows and Northern Shrikes, Merlins and an occasional Sharp-shinned Hawk hunt the songbirds attracted to the trees. My guess is that it’s only a matter of time – and not too distant time – before the first Steller’s Jays are reported at The Lake. In fact, based on a description a now deceased resident reported to me, I’m not sure they haven’t already been there.

But here’s a question: Are these trees actually an invasive species… like the Orange Hawkweed that only very recently has begun showing up at The Lake? Or, for that matter, the dandelions which have taken over the school yard (and also, in some years, provide food for the finches as they go to seed)? And what about the above-mentioned alders that are steadily crowding out what remains of the peninsula’s tundra?

For decades, the transplanted Sitka Spruce trees did not propagate themselves in the Chignik Drainage. But about five years ago that began to change when seedlings suddenly began volunteering themselves throughout the village. One might argue that even without human intervention it was only a matter of time before Picea sitchensis made its way down the peninsula. But couldn’t the same be said of the Orange Hawkweed, dandelions and even the Kamchatka Rhododendron that has naturally, over time, found its way to The Lake from its native grounds in far eastern Russia?

Dumping a bucket of carp or pike into a lake where they never before existed is one thing…

On the other extreme are dandelions and hawkweed, which seem to to have devised strategies to show up wherever environmental conditions suit them.

Somewhere in between are a vast array of flora and fauna that – with or without humankind’s assistance – are finding their way into new niches.

So, what do you think? Where is the line between happily-received newcomer and dreaded invader?

Takhi: The Last Wild Horses

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I want that One Early morning light splashes a trio of bachelor Takhi in Khustai National Park, Mongolia. December 19, 2024

Although colloquially called “wild” it is a misnomer, technically speaking, to refer to the free-roaming mustangs of North Carolina’s Outer Banks and the American West as such. In both cases, the horses in question are escapees from from domestic stocks and therefore, biologically speaking, are feral, not wild. But neither a 10-year-old boy nor a 64-year-old man is as likely to eagerly crane his neck from a car window to look at merely “feral” horses as for a glimpse of wild horses, and so in most cases the colloquial “wild” stands. In any regard, the distinction matters to some, less so to others.

The word “takhi” translates to spirit or spiritual in English, a fitting appellation for these noble beings – far more so than the alternative, Przewalki’s horse, applied as though the person who “discovered” them for Western Europe has the right to enslave them with his clunky name in perpetuity in an illusory pursuit of his own immortality. Just as all humans have a right to a name of their own choosing, should not all beings be distinguished with their own, unique, noble title.

The above having been accounted for, there is in fact one truly wild species of Equus still remaining in our world – the Takhi of Mongolia. The species was on the very brink of extinction by the 20th century and in fact became extinct in the wild by mid-century, having been hunted for meat. The few remaining Takhi were scattered in zoos in Europe and the United States, their outlook bleak. But in 1990, at the same time Mongolia became a Democracy, a breeding program was established and a few horses were reintroduced to Mongolia’s steppelands – perhaps the world’s greatest remaining uninterrupted grasslands.

And so now, in the year 2023, one can travel to Mongolia’s Khustai National Park and to a few other places and see for themselves these beautiful animals.

Herdsman, Mongolia: And the question, “Should I take a photography (or any subject) course?”

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We came across this herdsman tending goats in Khustai National Park, Mongolia. August 7, 2013

I rendered this as both a monochrome and a color image – a coin flip as to which I prefer.

I’d been interested… very interested… in photography ever since my early teens, but I didn’t pick up a camera and use it in any meaningful way until we traveled to Arctic Alaska, four years prior to the above photograph. I could have benefitted – perhaps a great deal – from a formal course of study in the subject. I guess. I’m not sure. Generally speaking, there are both benefits and drawbacks imbedded in the process of learning from others; just as there are benefits and drawbacks to learning on one’s own. Despite four years of somewhat purposeful shooting in Alaska, when we arrived in Mongolia I still didn’t really understand how a camera works. Nor did I have a vision of what kind of images I hoped to make. But once in a while I saw something I liked and I did what I could to make a capture… camera settings often somewhat randomly chosen, insufficient thought and visualization as to what the final, retouched image might look like (or what I hoped it would look like)… and any time a human subject was involved, struggling to overcome what is at times almost crippling shyness and apprehension on my part in order to get the picture. Often failing to overcome that apprehension and letting the moment pass.

So the question remains: Would I have benefitted from, for example, attending formal classes in photography at a respected institution under the guidance of expert instructors? Well, yes, for certain in regards to speeding up my learning curve with respect to technical and scientific aspects as to how a camera works and how film or an image sensor interprets light, and to gain a better understanding of the interplay between camera bodies and lenses. I read, on my own, and viewed a number of instructional videos addressing these subjects… and can report that while they were somewhat helpful, there is a lot of misinformation, and incomplete information, and misleading information on these matters – much of it dispensed by experts and by people who present themselves as experts. People who perhaps know what they are talking about or writing about, but who are not teachers and who don’t know how to teach and who have a difficult time imagining or understanding what a student needs to know… or how a student will receive and apply a given piece of information. Setting that aside, I suppose the answer is probably “Yes,” I – or anyone new to photograph – would benefit from interactive instruction where the primary purpose is to acquire knowledge of how a camera works and how light works and how a camera interprets light.

I suspect such a course of study would be helpful in the same way that prior to writing a novel or a magazine article, it’s necessary to have acquired an understanding of punctuation, syntax, paragraph structure and plot. Understanding basic structures – in any endeavor – can spare one from a lot of fumbling around.

But I wonder if, after 10,000 hours of mindful practice (a concept toward mastery I fundamentally accept), the person who began the journey initially studying under a master doesn’t end up more or less at the same place as the person who embarked alone, and vice versa. After all, whether the matter at hand is photography, writing or fly-fishing, once basic skills are acquired it is left to each individual to determine their own path as to how they hope to develop those skills. Realistic or conceptual; poetry or prose; salmon rivers or saltwater flats.

A problem with instruction beyond basic concepts is that it can end up creating a box around the student.

So… I think that, if it’s an option, by all means find someone from whom to learn the fundamentals – in any endeavor. But don’t linger there. Get the basics. And then go out and put them to use… learning more basics along the way, but more importantly, freeing oneself to pursue one’s own passions and to thereby develop one’s own vision.

I suppose the main thing, in any endeavor, is simply to get started.

The sooner the better.

Ravenous Sea

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This camp along the shore of the Chukchi Sea almost looks like an ocean going vessel, the cabin itself the wheelhouse, a flag marking the vessel’s bow as it faces a fall sea. Snow but no ice, you can see how the ravenous ocean eats at the shoreline of tiny Sarichef Island. All this will be gone one day… perhaps in not so many years. October 31, 2010