SNOW GEESE

FIVE YEARS AGO this month, I took my first trip to Skagit River Valley to see and photograph the snow geese that winter there. Some 80,000 of them migrate annually from the Arctic to western Washington, where farmers are paid to leave fields fallow for them. It’s not unusual to see large fields covered in geese—they make quite a racket—and their presence attracts numerous bald eagles. The snow geese, along with flocks of beautiful trumpeter swans, leave in the early spring.

Just a month before I took this picture, I’d sprung for a new camera and a lighter weight 300mm lens that Nikon had begun to offer. I was just learning how to track flying birds with the camera using steady movements of my arms and torso, though coaxing the autofocus to pick out the white birds against the river fog proved challenging. Following the geese with my eyes, the stark graphic quality of their black wing tips against the white sky excited me. One of the resulting images, the one above, caught the attention of a veteran National Geographic photographer living here in Port Townsend. He sponsored my first show one year later, which helped give me the confidence to continue with this work. I’m always pleased to see the picture hanging on the wall of his home.

Happy New Year everyone!

Nikon D500, 300mm with 1.4TC, 1/800 sec @ f11, ISO 360

For an added bonus, you might enjoy this youtube video of an eagle going after a flock of snow geese.

Would you like to know when the second edition of my new book, Aves, will be available? Let me know!

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