Jake Peterson’s Blog

The birds were back today. A nice show of Evening, Black-Headed and the new Rose-Breasted Grosbeak were here. Also the Western Tanagers have begun to show up. Today was the first sighting of them this summer. We still haven’t found a good way to photograph them, since they only go to the birdbath and not the feeders. The Rose-Breasted was around however he wasn’t cooperating photographically. I didn’t get the image of him I wanted, but at least he has chosen to stick around so there is time. The Evening Grosbeaks were quite friendly today, saw four of them at the feeder at one time. This one particular female Evening Grosbeak posed for me.

Well it has definitely been an exciting week here at the house. First the Varied Thrush shows up this summer and now an adult-breeding Rose-Breasted Grosbeak shows up. Yesterday I was playing PC games and my mom starts waving at me to come over to the office. When I did she pointed out at the feeder where he was just sitting on the corner eating. We both looked at each other with the expression, “of what is this?” He was nice enough to stay around a while so that I could id him, mom was still on the phone. He is quite the tenacious little guy fighting off the Steller Jays and Clark’s Nutcracker, and keeping his spot on the feeder. Of course this whole time I’m hitting myself because I don’t have the 600 setup. Lucky enough he came back a few times last night, last seeing him around 6. Never got a good shot, so i was hoping he’d be back today. Waking up to that notion, i came up stairs and mom had said that she had seen him already, so it looked promising to get a better shot. Around 12 he showed up again and continued to stay until about 6. Of course he never went to the spot I wanted, but he did pose much better than yesterday. With some more time and black oiled sunflower seeds, I hope to get some better images.

Well i wasn’t doing much this morning, except getting orders shipped out for WRP, so i decided to get my 600/f4 out and play with some of the local birds. The Black Headed and Evening Grosbeaks are back now that its Spring, so they were the focus of the shoot. Unfortunately they were being rather uncooperative, so ill have to get them later, but there was Steller Jays and Mountain Chickadee’s to play with.

Well the workshop is over and its time to go home. It’s been a really good week and a lot of fun but have to go back to reality now.

As with most forests, there are many fallen over trees. One of the redwoods that was found along the path was one with large roots and a lengthy trunk. That combination made for a nice black and white.

Wednesday morning was Jedidiah Smith State Park. Another really cool grove with many hiking trails. The low ferns and high trees make for some really cool possibilities.

I don’t know what to say accept, we have a good time.

Tuesday night was Battery Point Lighthouse, a very cool site in the Crescent City Harbor. Although the clouds weren’t doing anything really spectacular, it still gave enough to make a good background. This was taken with a 600 f4.

Tuesday morning we went to another grove with you guessed it, more redwoods. A spectacular grove with many images just waiting to be taken.

Once we moved past the boat graveyard, Josh and I saw boat over in the nearby bay that was half sunk and covered in kelp. while it was a ways over to the north, it definitely was worth the walk. The boat itself was tethered  to a  dock that was partly sinking and had a warning sign that said “venture on your on risk.” O good times.