Month: June 2023

Kodiak Brown Bear cubs are irresistibly cute. This cub, one of a trio, sticking close to its mother, kept looking at us across the grassy meadow as we photographed the bear family. The cubs have distinct personalities that are easy to spot: one always seems to stick close to its mother like this one; one always seems to wander off exploring on its own; and one is somewhere in the middle. The two more independent cubs enjoyed pummeling each other and rolling around in literal bear hugs. What fun to watch the family dynamic; it brought back memories of growing up with two older brothers.

She tolerates me when I’m photographing her while she’s sipping nectar from flowers. But the expression on the face of this female Anna’s Hummingbird, after I found her resting place in the Photinias, seems to say, “Can’t a girl have some privacy?”

A Western Kingbird perches on a dead twig near the Woodland/Davis Clean Water Agency facility.

My friend Pat and I visited the Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency facility the other day so that we could photograph birds as a way to famliarize ourselves with our new Nikon Z8 cameras. The facility has a couple of large ponds that attract lots of water fowl but until our visit, I hadn’t realized that it was home to so many Black-necked Stilts, those tall shore birds with impossibly long legs. There were several pairs there, each pair seeming to claim a corner of the pond. They were very noisy and their flight patterns were erratic. It was a challenge to keep them in the viewfinder as they flew. Not only did we see Black-necked Stilts but there were at least a half dozen Killdeer sitting on nests in shallow gravel scrapes, and several were on nests in the middle of the road, indicating to me that there aren’t many visitors there. Red-winged Blackbirds, Tri-colored Blackbirds, and Yellow-headed Blackbirds filled the reeds on the edges of the ponds. Tree and Barn Swallows swooped around us. Western Kingbirds perched on twigs. A Black-crowned Night Heron stood vigilant in the middle of an algae covered pond. It was, as they say, a target-rich environment. The Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency is only a half hour drive from my home so I’ll be returning soon.

Ever vigilant to protect her cubs, Mama Bear stands to get a better view of what danger might be lurking in the distance. Whatever it was that alerted her this time, it was a false alarm and the quartet (one of the three cubs is out of view in this image) went back to grazing.