Tag Archives: two

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Elephant Seals – Mother and Pup

February 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dark elephant seal pup rests its head on its lighter-colored mother.

I first visited this popular elephant seal calving area a few years back when I took a detour on a trip back from Southern California. I was familiar with the elephant seals of northern California, but I had not realized that they were in the south as well, so I was surprised when I came upon this place which has been set up as an observation station where visitors can watch a beach full of these immense creatures close-up. As I understand the outlines of the story, their numbers had decreased to very low levels until they were protected a few decades ago. Since then the population has rebounded. Each year when I visit this location it seems like I see more of them, and they are now starting to show up on other nearby beaches.

These animals are wild and tough creatures. They spend large parts of their lives in the ocean where they are apparently graceful creatures. On land, where they are found here, they can appear to be lazy and awkward and almost humorous at times. At this location in the winter, they mostly seem to lie on the sand – where they are no doubt safe from large off-shore predators – as they raise their pups. From what I read, the females come ashore and then do not eat during the period when they nurse their pups to weights of a few hundred pounds! The herd produces a wild cacophony of sounds that I do not have the vocabulary to fully describe – cries, screams, roars, and the deep and mechanical sound of the large males. Occasional fights erupt, especially a bit later in the season as the males battle for dominance. But if you look around in this mass of seal flesh, you can spot some vignettes that seem somewhere between funny and cute. This small back pup had lifted its head up so that could rest it on the back of the larger and lighter colored elephant seal, which I presume to be its mother.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Two Trumpeter Swans in Flight

February 4, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A pair of trumpeter swans in flight above Skagit Valley farmland on a cloudy and rainy day, Washington

I had about four or five hours in the Skagit Valley area of Washington in the beginning of December, after the tasks I had gone to Washington for were completed early. I drove up from the Seattle area in the rain, and it was still cloudy, windy, and rainy when I arrived – just what one might expect in December in the Pacific Northwest! The last time I had been there, a year ago, I had encountered amazing flocks of snow geese in a field near the road not far from where it rises to cross the river, and my first thought was that I’d see if this was a regular event or if I had just been lucky the previous year. I must have been lucky! This time there was not a goose to be seen, at least at first, at this location.

Given this development, I decided to poke around on some back roads in the area and see if I could get close enough to trumpeter swans to photograph them with my meager little 200mm focal length lens – about half the length of what I would usually use for this sort of subject. By moving carefully, using my car as a blind, and sitting quietly and waiting, I was able to get a few close shots of the swans in a field. I soon figured out that they would occasionally lift off and fly to another nearby field where there were other swans, so I positioned myself (in the car) between the two flocks and settled in to see what would happen. Sure enough, before long groups of two or more swans started to fly my direction and pass close to the car, usually rising a bit as they passed over. This pair made a bit of a turn around me, so I photographed them against the cloud-filled sky.

Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Trumpeter Swans, Trees

December 4, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two trumpeter swans fly thorugh trees along the edge of the Skagit River, Washington

I was in the Seattle area over the past few day, taking care of some business, but I unexpectedly found myself with a free day on Monday – planned activities were cancelled, flight didn’t leave until Monday night. Fortunately, there is no shortage of things to see and do in that part of the Pacific Northwest, at least if you don’t mind clouds and rain – and I don’t. So I headed up to Skagit Valley, which I had visited once previously, when I spent a day photographing migratory birds there last winter.

I figured I might again see trumpeter swans and snow geese, and I was not disappointed. There were fewer geese this year – though one spectacular flock – but more trumpeter swans. Since this trip had not been primarily about photography, I did not bring the gear I would usually use for photographing these birds, and the longest lens I had was a 70-200mm zoom. This meant that I could not photograph the birds from any appreciable distance, though I was on the lookout for large flocks that might let me do this. (That didn’t quite happen.) So I had to adopt a different approach. As I watched the swans, I figured out that hardly more than a few minutes would go by before one or two or perhaps a few more would make their long, shallow take-off and then fly at a low elevation to another likely spot. So I moved into some likely spots and shot from inside the car so as to make myself a bit less visible. Eventually a few of the birds flew almost directly over the car, or at least passed near by. These two were flying along a row of trees on the bank of the Skagit River.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Two Islands, Fog

November 29, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

I made my first trip of the season to California’s Central Valley in late November, in search of migratory birds – geese, herons, egrets, and so forth. I look forward to this every fall, for the experience of seeing (and hearing!) the birds but also as an excuse to explore the landscape of this part of California and, especially, to do so in interesting and evocative weather conditions. And, yes, fog is among those conditions.

The tule fog is a frequent feature during the winter months in the Central Valley, sometimes sticking around for days on end. One can drive over the hills into the Valley in sunlight, only to see the blanket of fog on the Valley floor ahead, and once inside the fog there is little trace of that brilliant winter sunshine. (Except that this fog, being shallow, sometimes creates the very odd juxtaposition of very impaired visibility and diffused light so bright you can barely look into it. Sometimes you can look up through this fog and see the sky or the moon above.) On this trip, when I arrived at my destination the fog was so thick that bird photography was, to put it mildly, challenging. On my first loop around the dirt road I did go slowly and find a few birds that were close enough to the road to make photographs, but on my second pass I instead thought to focus on the fog-blanketed landscape itself.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: two

Elephant Seals – Mother and Pup

Two Trumpeter Swans in Flight

Trumpeter Swans, Trees

Two Islands, Fog

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.