Notes from the Denali Highway: Rose Petals and the Say's Phoebe

It’s 11 A.M. and the six of us are sitting on stools at the wooden bar of the Maclaren River Lodge.   The dining room is full, hence the bar seating.

Rob carefully sets three jars of jelly on the bar.   We all order toasted homemade bread.

Rob's original photo of his creations.

Leilani and I have been here since 8:30, mostly because her declared mission of the day is to photograph a Say’s phoebe that has nested here for several years, so there was little stopping along the 20 mile drive. 

The Say's phoebe isn't a rare bird in Alaska as it nests throughout the Interior, but this one certainly is the most accessible.  We haven’t had much luck with that so far, even though a staff lady showed us the phoebe’s nest in the eave of the lodge.

“You watch, Leilani,” I say.  “When the guys get here, Jamin will have that phoebe posing right where he wants it.

I get shots of an unknown bird, a white-crowned sparrow,  and a robin.   We photograph the many cliff swallows that are gathering mud for their nests on the bridge over the Maclaren river.   We check often for the phoebe.

I spot this little unknown bird on a log below the lodge and take a few photos of it with a bee or hornet.

Note how carefully it's holding the business end.

Now though, the guys are here and our toast is ready.   Let the tasting begin.   I place dabs of dandelion, spruce tip, and rose petal jelly on a half slice and hand it to Shawn, the bartender.   Then, I indulge.

I contribute a jaw of red currant jam.   Its bright red color and bold tang contrast sharply with the delicate pastels and subtle flavors of Rob’s jellies.   All of his jellies are delicious, but my fav is the rose petal.

Rob foraged widely for his ingredients.   All the currants for my offering came from a bush my mother gave me forty years ago, and from the wild bushes that grow on my property.

Suddenly, we notice that Jamin has disappeared.   That can mean only one thing.   We grab our cameras and head outdoors.

Sure enough, just as I teased Leilani, Jamin has the Say’s phoebe “right where he wants it.”   Its perches couldn’t be more perfect for all of us to get clear looks.   It remains still for a spell, then moves to another, and another

Staccato sounds of click, click, click. 

 

  

I scroll back through my photos  to the unknown bird with the hornet and check with Jamin.   It was the Say's phoebe, after all. 

Yes, you, you famous little dear.

Meanwhile, inside the lodge, a number of road-dazed tourists are listening to a presentation about the lodge and this area before they have lunch.   They are on a trip with a well-known cruise/land tour operator and are on a long road trip from a lodge in the Wrangell-St. Elias mountains to Denali National Park, or vice versa.

They have no idea what’s they’re missing out here.

Notes from the Denali Highway: Eagle Eyes and Big Ears

By now it is apparent that I cannot hear the bird calls anywhere close to Leilani’s acute hearing.   Likewise, her long-range vision does not equal mine.

It reminds me of a time almost fifty years ago when I accidentally splashed a cleaning solution with hydrochloric acid in one eye.   After the burn healsed and after the requisite sight test, my doctor asked, “Do you swoop down on mice in the field?”   

My vision checked at 20/15 then.   It isn’t that anymore, though, even after cataract surgery on both eyes.

In the next couple days, Leilani directs us to many different species of birds, while I spot three eagles, two ospreys, a merlin, various waterfowl, and some of the smaller birds.   And a grizzly bear.

Thus, we become the birding team of Eagle Eye and Big Ears.   Each with our strength; each with our weakness.  Isn’t that what friends are for?

***

On our last afternoon, we drive through Tangle Lakes campground and down to the boat launch.   I immediately see Michael lying on the gravel beside the pond. 

We walk toward him as he gets up.   If Michael’s here, Jamin is nearby too, as they ride together.  He says Jamin is “over there” shooting a loon.    I look along the shoreline as I head for the concrete launch where I can sit down.

I don’t see Jamin anywhere.   I see a gravel shoreline, a small point of land with rocks, and a weird—looking pink three stump or branch.  I decide he must be around the corner.

I hurry to the launch where I can put down my camera and put binoculars on that odd stump/branch.

That’s when I realize it isn’t odd, or weird, or even plant material.   It’s Jamin’s hand.

Dressed all in camo and still as the dead, Jamin's cover is perfect.   I'm reminded of a story from earlier this year when someone called the cops about a dead body on the ice.

The body was Jamin in his winter camo, lying still while he waited for a bufflehead to get used to his presence and come closer.  

:Are you all right?"  asked the cop.   Slowly, slowly, Jamin raised his thumb.    He also got the shot. 

 

So much for my eagle eyes.

Shooting with Jamin

Jamin

During last year’s tumultuous political campaign when social media was replete with hateful, scurrilous memes and extremely differing opinions, my own Facebook page was transformed into a thing of beauty as photographers posted pictures of the birds of Alaska.  

One photographer in particular caught my eye with his stunning photos and his unusual first name of Jamin.   This guy has a gift, I thought, and avidly followed his work.

So, when I recently saw a note that he was going to host a birding photography workshop, I signed up immediately.  It was to be held the weekend of Aug 12 and 13 at the Eagle River Nature Center.   I made a hotel reservation as Eagle River is about 120-plus miles from where I live.

Jamin is an engaging young man who was born and raised in Talkeetna and now lives in Eagle River with his wife and two young children.  During lunch hour at his job in Anchorage, he visits the various birding areas and usually returns with very special photos that he shares that evening on a Facebook site called Birds of Alaska.

Eagle River Nature Center

Saturday evening, the 12^th, I arrived for the first part of the workshop, an informal lecture on the basics of bird photography, or as  Jamin called it, Bird Photography Bootcamp.  In the following hour and a half, he covered photo composition, appropriate attire (during which he modeled his 3-D camouflage jacket), gear, how to lure birds with bird calls, etiquette, and how to approach birds without frightening them.   He offered a number of tips based on his personal experience.

Inside the Nature Center

Jamin Taylor

The next morning in a not-quite-pouring but nonetheless wet rain, we assembled at the Nature Center. My camera was outfitted in its latest version or a raincoat:  an 11-gallon Hefty extra strong black trash bag with a small hole cut into one corner for the lens to extend through and a lavender rubber band securing the bag to the lens hood.  Another trash bag was draped over the gear bag that hangs from a shoulder strap.

An attempt at luring dark-eyed juncos to the flower bed at the center did indeed bring juncos, but they remained high in the trees.   We marched onward into the forest.

The juncos appeared, but they wanted nothing to do with posing out in the open in the rain.

This is the forest primeval.   The murmuring spruce and the cottonwoods,

Bearded with moss and in garments green, all dripping with rain.

 (Sorry, Mr. Longfellow.)

When we reached a small boardwalk viewing area, he set his Bluetooth speaker (protected within a plastic bag) near a meadow of drying cow parsnip, selected the appropriate bird calls on his smart phone, and waited.

It didn’t take long before we saw small birds coming to investigate.   My first shot was an experiment to check exposure, something that is my bugaboo with the camera I was using.   The photo was a bust, but I liked the tones in it.

An experimental exposure photo with intervening vegetation and the subject far away.   However, all was not lost as I learned what great perches the cow parsnip make.

A boreal chickadee appeared, followed by a handsome dark-eyed junco.

A boreal chickadee.   I call these birds the blue-collar version.   The black-capped chickadee looks like it's in formal attire, as opposed to the boreal, which dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt.

The very under-appreciated junco.

Then we were rewarded with a golden-crowned kinglet, a bird I’d never seen before in my admittedly limited experience.

Jamin soon turned off the bird calls, so as not to annoy the birds.  Limited use, he emphasized.

He found a downy woodpecker on a large cottonwood trunk right beside the trail.

 We passed a very cool cottonwood tree, and I lagged behind for photos.  As usual.

By the time cottonwoods get this large, the inside is usually rotten.

One way to get out of the rain.

At another boardwalk/viewing platform, we tracked speedy and showy kingfishers as they flew from perch to perch, and waited in vain for American dippers to appear.

Enough grain in this one to fill a silo, a result of extreme cropping.

We moved away from the boardwalk to get closer to one of the kingfishers’s preferred perches, and a curious weasel tried to crash the class.

Now attired in brown and white, the weasel will change to pure white with a black-tipped tail and be known as an ermine.

On the way back, we saw a teal dabbling along a marshy shoreline…..

An orange-crowned warbler….

And a black-capped chickadee in the cow parsnip.

A black-capped chickadee on cow parsnip branch in the rain.  Learning experience:   cow parsnip makes an excellent perch.

The final portion of bootcamp was a learning session held in a yurt.   Jamin set up his laptop and projected some of his photos onto a screen.   Then, he showed us how he edits the photos and refines them, using Lightroom and Photoshop.

I was so impressed with how adept he was with that software that I proclaimed I would never again post a photo on Facebook.   I lied.   Posting photos and getting comments is a valuable step in learning.

One of the most important things I learned was how to watch for ideal perches for the subject and then hope it lands there.    One advantage, according to Jamin, is that birds have favorite perching spots and will often return to that perch if you miss it the first time.

Thanks to Jamin’s excellent bootcamp, I am more confident than ever in this continuing learning experience called photography.   

Not so much with Lightroom, though.