When I had the opportunity to make images of the Rough-legged Hawk nest at the cliffs along the lower Chignik River, I was still thinking of myself as primarily a documentarian. Additionally, human proximity to the nest was clearly upsetting to the chicks as well as to the parents. And so, a couple of times I waded into the river, made quick photographs, and left. Documentation accomplished.

In hindsight, it might have been worthwhile to construct a blind at a respectful distance and to thereby more thoroughly record the nesting events that occurred every summer until recently at this little ledge about 60 feet up from the surface of the river. A regret is that I never made a video of the birds. Unfortunately, in July 2021, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake rocked the Chignik area and in so doing deposited a volleyball-sized boulder squarely in the center of the nest. The little ledge had always been a precarious site – exposed at times to high winds, vulnerable to potential predation by our resident Great Horned Owls, and subject to regular skiff traffic (and associated engine noise) – and in fact the summer of the big quake after laying just one egg, for unknown reasons the hawks abandoned the nest, before the earthquake struck.

After the big earthquake, with a large rock left in the middle of the nest, the site was no longer usable. We think we discovered a new nest further up the drainage, so hopefully Rough-legged Hawks will continue to be a part of Chignik fauna.