Photo of the Year 2010

I was afflicted with employment in 2010, so pickings for Photo of the Year are thin. I actually considered whether to renominate "Little Brothers" from way back in 2004, but I'll settle for this plug: Buy "Nothin' but Puffins (and other silly observations" now available on Amazon.com. I also considered whether to pick a flower photo from New York gardens or the California desert.

But I've never selected anything except a wildlife image, so ultimately I decided to turn to a Mississippi River eagle photo for the third time (also 2005 and 2007). This one is from a very reliable roosting tree on the Keokuk, IA waterfront. If eagles are widely spread, as they were last February, there are always at least a few that can be found in or near this tree. I'm planning to head back to Keokuk in a few weeks, and I'm hoping to cured of the affliction I mentioned earlier sometime between March and September.

Keokuk Eagle

Here are my POY selections for 2002-2009.

Junior I 2002

Gentoo Penguins 2003

Little Brothers 2004

Bald Eagle 2005

Blue Jay 2006

Eagle with fish 2007

Great Horned Owls 2008

Custer SP Bighorn 2009

Squaw Creek again

I didn't make it down to see the eagles and geese and Squaw Creek NWR in northwest Missouri last year, so I wanted to make sure to get there this year. The refuge web site said there were more than 100 eagles watching the geese, but when I made it there on Friday there seemed to be more people than eagles. Maybe they (the eagles) have already started to move on. I snapped a few images Friday and Saturday morning before trying to beat a blizzard back to South Dakota. Instead I got stranded in Onawa, IA overnight before making it home.

If "10" is the best I've ever seen at Squaw Creek (see 2005 and 2006), I would rate this trip maybe a "4".

Missouri eagle

Little Brothers revisited

In 2004 I visited several fabulous photo locations, including the Galapagos and British Columbia. But the only image I have ever gotten around to naming came from an August 2004 boat ride to Machias Seal Island off the coast of Maine. The scientific name for the Atlantic Puffin is Fratercula Arctica, which translates as "Little Brother of the North."

Little Brothers

"Little Brothers" is the cover image for a new book from Down East Enterprises, "Nothin' but Puffins, and Other Silly Observations." Author John McDonald is a noted Maine storyteller and humorist. There are 64 photos in the book and 22 of them are mine.

Washington

When I was spending a lot of time in Washington, DC about six years ago, they hadn't yet completed the World War II Memorial. Now they have. Click on images for larger versions.

I've never seen these before this year. If my notes from New York are correct, this is from Peru and is called Pachystachys lutea.

I strolled up the National Mall and made it to the gardens behind the Smithsonian Castle before it started to rain.

I'm here for another few months so I'm sure I will revisit many places such as the Air and Space museums and the National Zoo.

Little Yellow Birds

I wanted to cap off last week with images of burrowing owls in central South Dakota, but I didn't see any in the prairie dog towns where I saw them in May 2009. Maybe the hot, dry wind pushed them under ground and I went home with an empty memory card. At home over the long weekend I decided to finally get some shots of the goldfinches that frequent my bird feeder. When I lived in Massachusetts I got a lot of goldfinch images in my back yard, and after a slow start I've finally built up a goldfinch clientele at my South Dakota residence. Click on the images for larger versions.

Stand on Manhattan

In the 1968 novel "Stand on Zanzibar," author John Brunner projected that if the 7 billion people alive in the year 2010 were to stand shoulder to shoulder, they would cover the island of Zanzibar. According to Wikipedia, "Throughout the book, the image of the entire human race standing shoulder-to-shoulder on a small island is a metaphor for a crowded world where each person feels hemmed in by a prison made not of metal bars, but of other human beings."

This book I read 30 years ago came to mind as I was in the middle of eight weeks working in Manhattan. The island is only 1/20th the size of Zanzibar, so apparently it would be physically impossible for the entire population of Earth to be milling around in Times Square at all hours of the day and night. It just seemed that way.

Actually, the daytime population density of Manhattan (including commuters) is about 125,000 people per square mile. Each Manhattan resident and worker gets 220 square feet of land, in theory a luxurious 100 times more than the space required for standing and not being able to move an inch in any direction. (My hotel's elevators on Saturday mornings seemed to be an evil experiment to measure exactly how tightly humans can be packed.) On a cheery note, this land density doesn't take into account all floor space provided by skyscrapers that allow people to be stacked to the sky.

My next work assignment is to go stand on Dewey County, South Dakota, which is 100 miles from nowhere and has fewer than three people per square mile. Magnificent desolation, no packing or stacking required.

I have posted a bunch of images from my time in New York City and vicinity.

My Old House

During my trip east I drove by my old house in Massachusetts. New siding and a new roof. The 15 statues of bunnies, cherubs and saints are also new. Click on the image for a bigger version.

Keokuk

It has been a cursed season for eagling. I never made it to Missouri's Squaw Creek NWR in December due to weather/work conflicts, and there were low numbers reported in January from my other favorite places along the Mississippi in eastern Iowa. I finally made it to the Mississippi over the weekend, a few weeks later than in previous years.

The reports were true that eagle numbers along the river are down substantially this year. Although the winter has been snowy and miserable, it hasn't been cold enough to freeze the river and concentrate the eagles around the dams. Friday it was overcast and snowing, and I saw zero eagles at Lock and Dam 18 near Burlington where there usually are 400 at this time of year. I moved on to Keokuk. I saw perhaps 10 eagles on sunny Saturday morning. I got this shot of an eagle landing in the dependable tree next to the Geo. M. Verity steamboat. For more, click here, or click on the images for larger versions.

On my way home Saturday I stopped at another usual haunt, Neal Smith NWR just east of Des Moines. I've driven through there maybe four times and never saw the supposed elk herd in residence. This time I saw about 17 elk scattered in three places. The larger bulls were laying down and hard to see, so here are a couple of the smaller bulls.

2009 Photo of the Year

It's time for the Photo of the Year. As usual, I'm the only one allowed to enter and the prize is an all-expense paid trip to Keokuk, Iowa to chase eagles, which I hope to do sometime in the next few weeks.

Previous POY have something in common; with the exception of one unfortunate fish in a supporting role, birds are the subjects. Although I was tempted to award the POY this year to the mountain bluebird from May, I decided to go mammal this year with a Rocky Mountain Bighorn from December. There are some leaping bighorns from this same sequence, but I decided to go with the portrait.

Bighorn in the snow

Here are my POY selections for 2002-2008.

Junior I 2002

Gentoo Penguins 2003

Little Brothers 2004

Bald Eagle 2005

Blue Jay 2006

Eagle with fish 2007

Great Horned Owls 2008