Old Mountains & moments with birds

There are those moments.

A bird appears. Some sense of calm and trust. I truly don't know what or how, but i know I can approach to a certain distance. Perhaps the bird or birds begin feeding or they begin to preen. Those specific behaviors indicate comfort with the situation. When too many glances at me or some other indication like a stretch- relieving tension those tell me I am about to lose this bird, or I have approached too fast, or that the bird feels uneasy with me.

Television work with birds happens completely differently than with a still photograph. Still photographers deal with much smaller lenses with much lower overall equivalent magnification than what I work with. They seem to hammer a bird with flash. Large Fresnel lenses over flashes magnify the light and hurl it at the subject. That effect looks horrible in HD so about 7 years ago I began to make it a habit to never work with still guys and flash. Once in a while you find that it is unavoidable.

Not that I find still photography offensive. There are many many photographs and photographers I deeply admire. But, It is simply a different set of skills. To get a bird to accept you for 1/1000 of a second or to grab a series of frames with the wings raised as a bird takes off requires a different mind set.

Filming Living birds is a joint project between you and the bird. A cooperative venture if you will. The moving image captures behavior. It shows everything that is going on between you and the bird or birds in those moments. Little is left to imagination. You can witness everything this bird feels, IF you are paying attention.

Now sometimes you are filming a day of migration. White-fronted Geese flying up off a central flyway resting spot suddenly bank away. This means nothing except that the birds did not see you until they reached a point where you are revealed to them. Because it is October and it is hunting season birds react differently when people are shooting at them.

But I am simply looking to show the birds in what they are allowing me to see. So when a species reacts in fear to my presence, it means that it has had other experiences involving humans where they now associate humans with the potential for harm to themselves.

This realization is why I no longer hunt or fish. In many ways I never really hunted, fishing was fun for a time but Birding has always been my sport of choice. Wild birds are to be appreciated. I can buy chicken, turkey or other meats and I just don't get hunting any more. My son finds his release in more active sports -snowboarding or hunting in the fall, and I live in Montana where a good percentage of the population find a special sense of being through hunting. I support that entirely.

But when I picked up that first television camera in 1991, when I saw a gigantic lens that fit on an entirely different sort of professional portable camera -an inner shift occurred. The tensions of the earth quietly building now revealed. Internal plate tectonics were realigning the earth's crust. Old mountains shifted to meet in strange new ways. Colors met with dust and light, creating dreams of new horizons- Birds flew from the ancient cracks in the earth calling with foreign tongues.

Summer is over

I get sick every year this time. Not physically. mentally.

The thing is - it just gets dark too early.

In the tropics I find it totally annoying that the sun comes up the same and goes down the same. Everyday, boring. No leafs turning, no change in seasons. No hope.

Even though I didn't grow up here, these days I hang my hat near a little town in Montana. I think I got addicted to the light.

Summers are long glorious affairs. The sun practically only goes down long enough to get you a bit of sleep and - well, you have to realize that the snow in late April -sure it is April- and that drift across the driveway is 7 feet tall... that doesn't count. Nope Snow in June the last two years. "Well- it isn't officially summer yet." Right- June 21 don't cha know.

The sun marches up the mountain chain setting each night bit further north until the summer solstice then we get about 4 hours of "real" darkness.

Being a birder since childhood, I am now a confirmed morning person. I tried to become an Owl during certain periods of my life but I failed. Those of you who are owls are free to leave if you wish.

So when the summer is going strong so am I. I'll sleep when I am dead.

Birds are the same way. Many species start before light, a high pitched insect trill? Nope Henslow's Sparrow - a noted songsters if you are a grasshopper. Crickets... hah. Well they are more arrogant.

Besides copious amounts of coffee my life requires a massive doses of the outdoors. Being a wildlife television cameraman, my life itself is a migration. Hundreds of miles hiking, Thousands of road miles, hundreds of thousands of air miles which I never turn in and worse, I rarely remember to even give them the stupid number when I make the reservation. Don't get me started on baggage policies.

So I cling to this little house. Stuck on a ridge in the fiercesome gales which begin late fall. Winds. After the glories of summer here- Winter is the correction.

There are really only two seasons in Montana. Summer and winter. Some years there is a fall. Perhaps you get a spring. But when that drift swims across the roads and the powerlines go down - you know the story--when there is that much White- it is not really summer yet. Well no you don't that is why you are reading this.

June 6, 2009 a massive storm blows through. Epic storm. My sister calls. "But it is summer!"

another City girl....

The sun is a bit south of where I like to see it rise. But I need a dramatic sun-rise time lapse so I am planning the shot, the lens, the light.

So from a little town in rural Montana- we'll call it OneStopLight, Montana. Happy Trails.