While walking along the shore of Mono Lake in California, I saw an osprey fly overhead with a giant stick firmly locked in its talons. Not only was I surprised to see an osprey there, I was stunned it would even nest in the area.
The scientific name for osprey translates to "fish eagle." Mono Lake, however, is so salty that only brine shrimp live in its waters.
Someone who knows I'm a nature photographer, but isn't one himself, recently asked me what I do on cloudy days.
"On a day like today," he said, gesturing out a window toward the gray sky, "what would you photograph? Anything?"
I've seen plenty of waterfalls, but until recently, I had never seen a "waterfall of murres." That's how friends of mine in Cannon Beach, Oregon, describe a truly wondrous nature show that takes place this time of year on the nearby Chapman Point.
There hasn't been a waterfall per se at Dry Falls in central Washington for at least 10,000 years. But when there was a falls there, it would have been spectacular: 400 feet high, 3½ miles wide and ten times as powerful as all the world's current rivers combined.
We are creatures of habit. That's well documented. In stores, we buy a particular brand simply because that's the brand we always buy. Many of us regularly check our messages whether or not we're expecting anything because we've gotten into that habit.
And as photographers, we're inclined to photograph a familiar subject a particular way simply because that's the way we've always done it. It becomes habit and we probably don't even think about why we're setting up the shot that way.
The black-capped chickadee is no ivory-billed woodpecker. Dozens visit my office window every day to feast on the free suet.
But just because they're common, doesn't mean they are not interesting. And a recent snow storm that, at times, had my yard buried under nearly 10 inches of snow allowed me to create some images that help tell their remarkable winter story.
