Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge, Part II

I have steadily become a bigger and bigger fan of national wildlife refuges. If you want to see breathtaking scenery, national parks are generally a better bet. But as their name implies, national wildlife refuges are the places to go for animals.

Because nature doesn't operate like the Jungle Cruise at Disney World, there's no guarantee you'll see exactly what you're hoping to. That may be a reason why national parks are more popular; Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon are always going to be where you expect them.  But that degree of uncertainty with trying to photograph wildlife is part of its appeal to me.  You've got to know something about your quarry's behavior and make smart choices about time and location to improve your chances.  I'll always choose an activity where there's a degree of skill and influence over the outcome involved over ones that are almost complete chance.

With shorebirds -- and specifically baby ones -- firmly in mind, of course the first thing I'd find would be a relative of a familiar Colorado species.  Eastern Towhees look similar to the Spotted Towhees I would occasionally encounter in the Rocky Mountains.  I lay still and watched this one hop around foraging for a while, and while it clearly noticed me it wasn't too concerned about me.

Speaking of familiar species, House Finches apparently also like Cape Cod beaches in addition to backyard feeders in North Texas and streams in Colorado.

I was still fighting overcast skies, and this Least Sandpiper didn't seem to want me to get close.  So the shot is a little grainier than I would like due to a fairly high ISO and some tight cropping.  I know, I know -- excuses are unbecoming. :P

I crested a dune covered with dense, short bushes and a chorus of cheeps.  I could never actually see the source of any of the cheeps, but they all seemed to becoming from deep within the bushes.  Spotting this Savannah Sparrow holding an apparent meal in its beak and appearing unsure of what to do with it, my assumption is that the bushes were full of nests with newborns.  The parent didn't want to reveal the location of its nest with me lurking about.

And speaking of parents -- aren't all the segues in this post great? -- I eventually came across a pair of Piping Plovers.  They were giving me the routine of sitting down in the sand, then getting up and running off a few feet, making peeping noises the whole time.  I was sure they were trying to lead me away from a chick.

Sure enough, after much scanning of the area, I found the chick!  It makes sense that something whose life literally depends on not being found by other things whose lives literally depend on finding it would be tough to spot.

I was surprised at how fast this little bird could run; it definitely wanted to stay as far away from me as it could.  So I tried to respect that, settling again for some fairly distant shots.  Always better to not get the exact shot you want than to overly stress any wildlife.  But at least I finally saw my shorebird chick!

Feeling at least somewhat successful, I headed back toward my car.  As the tide continued to recede, I noticed some movement in a patch of wet sand among some reeds -- fiddler crabs!

This guy seemed to be the BMOC, waving his big ol' claw around.

Then this guy came out of his hole all like, "Bruh, you ain't all that!"

And then they went at it!  The duel was short and not especially violent.  The guy on the right emerged the apparent victor, as his challenger slunk back to his hole.

These two dudes had the right idea -- no need to fight; let's just chill and enjoy a day at the beach!  Of course, I suppose every day for a fiddler crab is a day at the beach...

The only thing I would have changed about my visit to Monomoy would have been to have clearer skies.  But I saw everything I hoped to see, and for that I was grateful.

Related Links:

• Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge, Part I
• Great Island Trail, Part I
• Great Island Trail, Part II

Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge, Part I

Once the fog had lifted (somewhat) on the morning of my Cape Cod photo shoot, I switched from my wide-angle lens to my zoom lens and began the search for wildlife subjects in earnest.  Oddly, what I initially found to shoot all turned out to be inanimate.  That was probably a good thing, because the fog hadn't really "lifted" so much as given way to skies that could be better classified as "overcast."  So my light was a little low and quite flat, two factors I struggle with when trying to take pictures of things that move.

One of my favorite things about shooting in an unfamiliar location is how excited I get about things that are probably pretty commonplace and I just don't know it.  Like when I saw this horseshoe crab shell, I was captivated by it.

Then I saw another one, and thought it was also pretty cool.

Then another, and by now I was doing things like getting flat on my belly to change the perspective.

Then a tiny one ...

... and then one I thought might actually still have a living inhabitant.  But it didn't.  Nevertheless, I thought they were all compelling!  After two more visits, I'd probably be ignoring them all.

When it wasn't crab husks, it was these little mussel sculptures.  Each seemed like a little natural work of art.

These odd bundles were seriously like snowflakes or fingerprints; no two were alike.

Honestly, I have no idea what holds these tiny collections together.  What sort of strange invisible marine glue binds rocks, shells, and seaweed?

Speaking of art in nature, spirals are amazing.  Whether in ram horns or shark eye shells, the fact that this pattern just occurs all on its own is as much evidence of the existence of God to me as the breathtaking mountain vistas of Colorado.  It's not the shapes or scenes themselves; it's what they do to my heart.

Next up, subjects that actually move!

Chatham

It had been four years since we'd taken our last biannual summer trip to New England to visit family. So clearly, we were well overdue. That's how I found myself back on Cape Cod a couple of weeks ago, checking the weather forecast for a good morning to go out and shoot. The one I chose called for thick early fog giving way to partly cloudy skies. I had a pretty good idea of what effect thick fog would have on a sunrise, but I aimed to find out for certain.

Chatham was my specific destination, mainly to continue the search for shorebird chicks I had begun in Galveston the previous month.  The town also has a famous lighthouse, the purpose of which was quite obvious given the conditions.

Speaking of the conditions, it was readily apparent that the effect of thick fog on a sunrise is to, in effect, eliminate it all together.  Which was fine, because the fog had its own unique beauty in how it obscured the distance.

As I walked the shore at Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge, I was intrigued by some delicately balanced cairns that someone had obviously taken great care to construct.

The fact that nobody had as of yet knocked them over just because they could did a nice bit of restoring one's faith in humanity.

My real purpose in visiting Monomoy was to photograph the aforementioned shorebirds.  As the current visibility precluded that, I returned to town to explore other sights such as Lighthouse Beach ...

... and the Chatham Fish Pier.  Things were equally quiet and moody all around, so after grabbing a cup of coffee and killing some time hoping for the fog which I had known full well would be there to burn off, I decided to return to Monomoy so as to be in position to start taking pictures of those shorebird chicks, if, in fact, there were any about and the fog did, actually, go away.

The fog had not, in fact, as of yet gone away when I returned to the refuge.  Of course, all of these different locations were no more than a few minutes' drive from each other.  So it wasn't as if a tremendous amount of time had passed.  Still, there had been enough time for the tide to come in to the point where continuing down the shore became a trickier proposition unless one cared to walk on the rocks rather than the sand.

The rising tide had engulfed the base of the cairns, as well, yielding a different sort of scene that I decided was worth another picture.  And what was that high in the sky?  Could the sun be finally making a concerted effort to appear?

More to come!