The Casual Blog

Tag: bald eagle

January 31, 2023

Ducks at Delmarva, bird rescues, and flu research

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I headed up to the Delmarva peninsula for a photography workshop featuring wintering ducks.  We put on waders and got in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay near Cambridge, Maryland.  There were hundreds of beautiful ducks and other water birds, flying in and swimming close.

From a distance, ducks on the water can look peaceful.  But up close, it’s clear they swim fast and are constantly on the lookout.  Their lives are not easy.  

We also went to the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge to look for various other creatures, including short-eared owls.  We saw various eagles, harriers, and great blue herons, a fox, and, after a lot of looking, a SE owl – my first, which was kind of a thrill.  The sun was setting, but I managed to get one shot.

As much as I enjoyed seeing the uncommon birds, I also got joy from the more common ones.  We see a lot of mallards in the course of a normal year, and it’s easy to forget about their amazing colors.  I liked this flying shot, and also one of two mallard drakes having a squabble.

We saw a vast accumulation of snow geese grazing in a farm field.  Something (maybe a fox) startled them, and they all took wing in an instant, with some of them headed directly at us.  They made an amazing racket.  It was so exciting I forgot to worry about the possibility of being hit by one of these good-size, fast fliers.  We noticed after the big launch that a few birds were still on the ground, apparently wounded by collisions during the take off.  Clearly, it’s not easy flying in a crowd.  

The workshop was organized by Shoot the Light, Chas Glatzer’s outfit, and led by Joe Subolefsky.  I had thought Chas would be the leader, and was disappointed at first to learn otherwise, but I was very happy working with Joe.  He knew a lot about the wildlife and about making interesting images with mirrorless cameras (the kind I’m using now).  

Speaking of birds, Sally and I had a special opportunity to visit the American Wildlife Refuge, a bird rescue center in Clayton, N.C.  There were quite a few big birds there who’d been hit by cars or otherwise injured, including barred owls, a great horned owl, red-tailed hawks, broad-winged hawks, Cooper’s hawks, vultures, and a bald eagle.  Most of these were on the road to recovery and were expected to resume their life in the wild.  The barred owls  were especially curious to see us, and sat together on a branch watching us intently.

We talked with the head of the organization, Steve Stone, who is a fully licensed and very experienced wildlife rehabilitator.  He is effectively a full time volunteer who has devoted much of his life to helping injured birds.  We were happy to be able to donate to support this work, and hope others will do so.  The web site is http://awrefuge.org/

Until last week, I’d never volunteered for a medical research project, but I  decided to sign up as a subject for a study of a new flu vaccine being developed by Pfizer.  I met the age and vaccine criteria (over 65 and not vaccinated for flu).  After a telephone interview, I went in for another interview, along with a physical exam.  

It was more involved than I expected.  But I got a shot of either the current flu vaccine or the experimental mRNA one.  Other than the needle prick, nothing bad happened.  And I got a non-de-minimis payment:  $150!  

September 10, 2019

Birds at Shelley Lake

A great egret at Shelley Lake

As occasionally happens, earlier this week I had my doubts about whether I’d be able to come up with any new images or words to post on The Casual Blog.  It felt like maybe the well had finally run dry.  

The cure turned out to be simple:  just spending more time with nature.  I drove up to Shelley Lake early on several mornings.  I did some walking, but mostly I just stood looking out over the water.  It was quiet, except for animal sounds. Of course, there was also a bit of traffic noise, but it wasn’t bad.  

Canada geese

The Canada geese were the noisiest creatures at the lake, and did plenty of honking.  They used to be rare around here, but now are common, and considered by most an unwelcome nuisance.  But I think they’re handsome.  

I noticed that, along with their big honks, they make some barely audible sounds, which clearly have meaning to them.  As I watched, they made sounds and gestures as they swam slowly and organized themselves into small groups. The groups took flight for short intervals.  I’m guessing they’re practicing for the fall migration.  

A foggy morning for flying

I also saw a number of other good looking birds — great blue herons, great egrets, kingfishers, and mallards.  These are all pretty common here, but still fun to watch, and the fast-flying kingfishers and mallards are challenging to photograph. I also saw a Cooper’s hawk (at least I think it was a Cooper’s) and one bald eagle — the first one at Shelley Lake for a while. 

A kingfisher fishing

Just standing still is not something that I’ve done a lot of.  It seemed at first like I might be wasting time, which I hate to do.  But I found it soothing and nourishing to be near the water with the animals.  I had my camera with my big lens mounted and ready to go, and my senses were on high alert for possible photographic opportunities.  But for extended periods, not much happened, at least at the human scale. And that was ok.  

Mallards

This week I listened to a good podcast about animal intelligence, including communication systems and emotions, on the Ted Radio Hour.    This podcast summarizes several Ted Talks, which are already highly boiled down versions of bigger ideas, which I guess is for those with short attention spans.

In any case, simplified ideas are better than none, and of course, you can always go back to the longer versions.  I was particularly interested in hearing the voices of Carl Safina and Frans de Waal, whose recent books on animal emotions I thought were worthwhile.  As one of the speakers said (in effect), in understanding non-human animals better, we understand ourselves better.  

A Cooper’s hawk (I think)

I also pushed forward in Martin Hagglund’s new book. This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom.  Hagglund’s conception of secular faith is profound, and somewhat involved. He argues that all religious conceptions of value place their primary emphasis on achieving an unchanging, eternal state, which is involves an inherent contradiction.  

As the Talking Heads once waggishly observed, “heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.”  Not such an interesting place, much less an ideal. For there to be meaning and value in our lives, life must be finite — fragile and subject to loss.  Hagglund thinks the real source of hope and meaning in our lives is misidentified by conventional religions, and is inseparable from time and our finite existence.

Hagglund’s ideas are truly iconoclastic, and worth engaging.  They aren’t easy to engage in his book, which at times seems lacking in forward motion.  I suspect that their most natural format would be not a whole book but rather something like one of Plato’s dialogues.  Fortunately, Hagglund sums up some of his key ideas in a recent interview in Jacobin. 

Leave a comment