Best Laid Plans

Female Cassowary Drinking

Well, I had the best intentions.  I have just returned from my trip to Australia where I spent ten days following wild cassowaries through the Queensland rainforest - a project that I fully intended to document on this blog. That is, until the logic board on my laptop failed, rendering the computer unusable. Since I use this to store and edit pictures - and to post to blogs etc. - I was silenced. I picked up the repaired laptop on my way to the airport - on the way home...

Tech discussion as follows:

Me : "What makes the logic board go bad?"

Tech-guy: "No idea."

Me: "Sounds illogical to me."

Anyhow, I will try to reconstruct some of the events of the trip in the next week or so as I get the pictures edited.

This image is of an adult female - the only one I saw during my stay, drinking water out of a rainforest pool. Cassowaries cannot lap up water like a cat, but must scoop it up with their bills, then tilt their head back to let it run down their throat. I was pleased to be able to show this.

Nikon D3, 70-200mm lens

Shameless Promotion Dept.

Photo : Amazon River Dolphins, Brazil

Seriously, I think I used this title for my blog before...  In any case, I wanted everyone to know about my show, in lively Canton, MA  (pop. 21,000) opening later this month. The show is a collection of about 70 of my images of endangered species worldwide.  If you live in the area, please come by and have a look.  Better yet, come to my lecture on February 25, when I will introduce the show, sign books - and talk about my career, including my work with National Geographic.  It would be a pleasure to meet any and all.

Cassie Diary

Bashing Through the Forest

Last month, I got the call - a message from friends in Queensland, Australia that the male Cassowary that I have been following for several years had just emerged with five young chicks. Unfortunately, I was just leaving for Antarctica and couldn't leave immediately, as much as I would have liked to.

With that trip done, and other responsibilities out of the way, however, I am headed back to Australia next week. In the meantime, sadly, three of the young chicks have vanished, presumably taken by a feral cat seen in the area.

While I am there, I hope to post daily (or nearly) posts to this blog - a Cassie Diary - with pictures and stories from the Queensland rainforest.  Stay tuned.

Nikon D3 and 24-70mm lens

Merry Christmas, One and All

Sea Ice Breakup, Port Lockroy, Antarctica

Tomorrow is Christmas, and we'll be heading out soon to spend it with family on the Oregon Coast. A week ago, however, we were busting through the pack ice in Antarctica.  As I have previously posted, the light was not always what I might have hoped, with almost constant clouds and snow. But when conditions are less-than-generous with color, it's often a good time to switch to black and white.

This image was originally shot in color, but with digital cameras it is easy to transform a dull color landscape into a rather nice b&w one. There are many ways to do it, but my technique is to simply de-saturated the color image (saving the original RAW in case I ever want to go back to color) and add needed contrast through Levels or Curves - the ideal is to create a histogram with the complete spread of gray tones from left to right (rather than bunched up in the middle). Snow, it turns out, is filled with all sorts of nuances - light and shadows - and lends itself perfectly for this kind of treatment.

Enough Tech Talk - go spend some time with your loved ones, and stay warm...

Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm lens

Unexpected Moments

Chinstrap Penguin (Pygoscelis antarctica)

I was pleased to be asked to return to Antarctica this month, as a lecturer on the National Geographic Explorer. It is one of my favorite corners of the planet and the timing was good: I am working on an updated version of my 2000 book Penguin Planet and would love to include as much new material as I can. And because I have quite limited time on the Antarctic Peninsula, I thought this would give me a shot at some new images of the 3 most common penguin species found there: Adelie, Gentoo and Chinstrap.

There was still a lot of snow on the Peninsula this season, and many of the nesting birds were arriving at their colonies to find them still buried. Although penguins generally choose nesting sites in areas that are among the first to be snow-free, sometimes a heavy snowfall defeats them. They can't lay their eggs on the snow, and can only sit there waiting for it to melt.

This Chinstrap was doing just that, sitting on a snowbank, several feet above what he had expected would be his nest site. When I started photographing him, he was drifting in and out of sleep, and I was just about to walk on when he suddenly woke up and had a stretch, opening his mouth in a wide yawn - and twisting his body into a contortion that I had never seen before - nor thought possible.  He held it for just a second...and then promptly went back to sleep.

So although it may look like he was warning me to back off, I can assure you it was a simple, extravagant stretch - born of boredom and frustration (or so I imagine).  Whatever the emotion, it created a striking image, even if slightly weird (like a feathered ball with handles), and I was grateful for it.

Nikon D3 with 70-200mm lens

Vultures of the Sea

Northern Giant Petrel in Flight, Drake Passage

As big as an albatross, and a close relative, the giant petrel has been a constant companion on our voyage back from Antarctica. Giant Petrels are polar scavengers, eating the carcasses of  seals, whales and anything they might find at sea or on land. They can also be predators of penguin chicks and eggs.

Following the ship as we plow through the swells, petrels like these can soar effortlessly for hours, if not days, in the strong wind. This bird flew right along the ship at eye level, apparently curious, and I was able to get this portrait as he passed by the bridge wing. I used a flash to give him a little extra color in the gloomy light, and used a slightly slow shutter speed to give the background a silky motion.

With two long days at sea back to Ushuaia, photographing the world's greatest flying birds is an enjoyable distraction.

Nikon D3, 70-200mm lens

Visions of the Forest

Forest Stream, Mt. Tompotika, Sulawesi

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I spent several weeks in Indonesia, documenting diversity for a small NGO.  For the first week, I concentrated on the endangered Maleo (see below) but I also spent several days exploring the montane forests on the slopes of Mt. Tompotika, in a remote corner of central Sulawesi. With few trails, we hiked up the bed of an un-named creek, swollen with water from recent rains. Except for the stifling heat, I felt right at home in an environment that looked very much like the temperate Olympic rainforests near my home.

For this shot, my eye was immediately drawn to this cluster of leaves growing on a stream-side boulder.  Moving in close with a 17mm lens, I was able to fill the lower part of the frame with these boldly shaped leaves, and use the upper part to give a sense of the stream and surrounding forest.

The leaves were wet, however, and reflecting the silver light from the cloudy sky, so I used a polarizer to cut that glare, saturate the green, and slow down the motion of the water.

Nikon D3, with 17-35mm lens, Polarizer and tripod