Harbor Seals

So it seems I am becoming merely a wildlife photographer. I keep getting so many cool shots I don't have time to think about actually studying these animals. Not that I'm complaining- keep the seal and raccoon sightings coming! These seals are incredibly curious. I was using a short lens for all of these photos so the young seal actually let me get that close to it without being disturbed. The ones in the water originally were farther away and were a bit startled by me but as I waded into the ocean a number of them actually came closer to see what I was doing. Some even followed me as I slowly walked back up the beach.

Drawing and Naming

Last winter I began keeping track of individuals in a population by creating detailed drawings from photographs I've taken. So far I've only worked with birds. The first two I drew were a Blue Jay and a male Evening Grosbeak. I referred to the jay as Jazz and the grosbeak as Eridin. I refuse to number animals- ignoring the anthropomorphic reasons it just makes it much more difficult to remember an individual. Besides, Jane Goodall named her chimps so I have few qualms about doing the same. One method I'm trying to use however, is to keep all of the individuals of the same species named with the same first letter which is chosen from the first letter of their common or scientific name. Blue jays are named with 'J', Evening Grosbeaks 'E',
Catbirds 'Ca', Barn Swallows 'Ba', etc... Hopefully I'll learn to recognize these individuals without having to refer to photographs.

Time machine anyone?

How wonderful it would have been to be born 200 years ago with so many species still to be discovered. Now we are discovering the loss of species rather than their existence. Almost everything has been classified and the hope of finding anything new is diminished by the impossibility of knowing every species currently documented. This is not to say I believe well known species are uninteresting but that the general public can look at the photo of a raccoon and go "that's just a raccoon" without the slightest bit of emotion being impressed upon them. This is frustrating. It is an incredible challenge to create or discuss something that has already been dismissed as common and even more so something that is rare, but yes, already discovered and studied. When a creature falls under the 'endangered species' category suddenly it is political. When it doesn't it's banal. So what is a naturalist to do in a world where a photo of a new iphone is far more exciting than a photo of an old species?

Doe

An afternoon visitor. She was quite unperturbed by my presence. At first I was trying to be as sneaky and quiet as possible- taking photos out of windows, sneaking around the back of the house- but I quickly realized she didn't much care that I was there, just so long as I didn't get too close.