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Arctic Terns

Arctic Tern in Flight #2
I’ve been spending the last few weeks working on final edits to the images I captured in England. I was only able to shoot for a few days before coming down with Covid, which brought my participation in the workshop to a screeching halt. Still, it was a fun and rewarding time, brief as it was.

This summer’s adventure was a workshop based in Seahouses, a small seaside town on England’s Northumberland coast and the jumping-off place for tour boat trips to the Farne Islands about five miles offshore. The Farnes are an internationally important habitat for breeding colonies of some 200,000 seabirds, representing 23 species, that come to nest and raise their young during the spring and summer months.

As an Arizona desert dweller, I knew next to nothing about the varieties of seabirds that populate these islands. After every photography expedition, when I get back home and start work finalizing my ‘keepers’, I go online to google more interesting details about the subjects I’ve captured with my camera. As a result, my photography leads me down a rabbit hole of never-ending learning experiences.

The original intent of this week’s newsletter was to share bits and pieces about the entire experience, from seabirds to castles to ancient history. But the flood of trivia became so voluminous, I had to narrow things down to just one topic. Let me introduce you to the Arctic Tern.
Arctic Tern on a Rock
These small elegant birds are famous for their epic migrations to and from their breeding grounds in the UK and the Arctic, all the way to the Antarctic for the remaining months of the year, a distance of between 44,000 and 59,000 miles round trip each year, the longest recorded of any animal. Their long wings and scissor tails support their ability to glide for long distances, conserving energy during these epic flights. Their gliding ability is so effective, they are even able to sleep while airborne. The migration follows the light and warmth of the sun, so that each year they see two summers and bypass winter. Because they live between 20-30 years, one tern in its lifetime will fly the equivalent of three round-trips to the moon!

Terns nest on open ground, scraping out shallow depressions that are vulnerable to predators. To protect their nests, they cluster in tight colonies and aggressively defend their space by attacking any and all perceived threats. So effective are these fierce little warriors that other species of birds often nest nearby, benefitting from the air cover provided by the terns.
Arctic Tern Attack v2
The Farne Islands have been looked after by the National Trust for nearly 100 years. Visitors are ferried by boat from the Seahouses harbor to the islands in tightly scheduled shifts. Wooden boardwalks traverse the small islands to control foot traffic and NT rangers monitor the tourists.

The day we visited Inner Farne Island, home to a famous colony of breeding Arctic terns, the rangers warned us that the birds were really on the warpath. As we clambered ashore from our vessel and headed up the walkway, terns fluttered and circled above our heads, screaming threats and dive-bombing us, occasionally even landing on our heads to deliver a sharp peck or two from their pointy red beaks. Visitors are advised to wear a hat! I had to wash mine at the end of the day, thanks to the decorative white streaks it had acquired during our visit.

When the Covid epidemic hit in 2020, the islands were closed to both visitors and staff, remaining closed the following year as well. The unexpected result was that the terns abandoned their colony on Inner Farne Island entirely. In normal times resident wardens keep the vegetation under control to maintain the open space preferred by the terns for nesting. Due to the absence of human traffic for two years running, the vegetation became overgrown and predatory large gulls proliferated. In 2021 the terns abandoned Inner Farne entirely and found other locations for their nesting colonies. 

When traffic opened up again in 2022, wildlife lovers were thrilled when the terns returned once again to their traditional nesting sites. But sadly another crisis is devastating the Farne Islands bird population. An epidemic of avian flu has spread from domestic flocks to the wild, killing thousands and possibly tens of thousands of seabirds. Shortly after our workshop ended, the islands were closed once again to tourist traffic. Wardens are now dressed in hazmat suits as they gather up the corpses of deceased birds in an effort to minimize the spread of the disease. The National Trust is calling this outbreak an ‘unprecedented wildlife tragedy.’
Arctic Tern with Sand Eel

Sorry to end on such a sad note. It seems that epidemics have been a way of life these past few years. Still, I’m happy to share my collection of ‘keepers’ from this star-crossed workshop. The gallery can be viewed from the link below.

Posted by Carol in England

Travel Lowlights

So sorry for the gap in posts! Our much anticipated two-week Scottish vacation, planned years in advance, was fun for three or four days and then descended into disaster as both Mike and I came down with Covid. A sore throat woke me about 1 a.m. and, sure enough, I tested positive in the morning. We immediately made plans to abandon our fellow workshop participants so as not to expose them further and headed to a hotel in downtown Edinburgh where we holed up in isolation for the duration of the trip.

Instead of an idyllic drive to the Highlands, a ride aboard the “Harry Potter” steam train on what is advertised as the most beautiful train trip in the world, a ferry ride to the Isle of Skye, more touring of Skye and Inverness, and a couple of days in the spectacular Fife Arms Hotel in Braemar to cap it off – we whiled away the days in our hotel room in Edinburgh, ate room service, and only ventured out to stock up on vitamin C, zinc tablets, cold medicine, and sore throat lozenges. No refunds were forthcoming from our cancellations, although the train company kindly offered us a credit good through next year should we come back to Scotland. And, of course, there was the added expense of 8 nights in the Edinburgh hotel. Our room did have a great view of Edinburgh Castle out the window, however!

Once our symptoms subsided and our recommended five days of total isolation ended, we did slip out to see a bit of Edinburgh. Primarily we toured the city aboard double-decker sightseeing buses with open-air seating on the upper decks. The city was in a celebratory mood. Queen Elizabeth was in town, staying in the royal residence of Holyrood Palace which was therefore closed to tourists until she departed.

We did manage to visit this beautiful palace once it re-opened to the public. It was built in the 16th century adjacent to a 12th century abbey, and has housed royal residents including Mary, Queen of Scots in the 1500s and Bonnie Prince Charlie during the Jacobite Rebellion in the 1700s. To tour the lavish rooms is to be acutely aware of the hundreds of years of history embedded in its walls, including weddings, intrigue, murder, looting, riots, fire, and cannon barrage.

The disadvantage of catching Covid in a foreign country is the lack of familiarity with the resources – no family doctor to consult, no real idea of what the local protocol for treatment would be, where the hospital was, etc. Neither of us got sick enough to need emergency services, but it certainly was a thought lurking in the back of our minds – what to do if?

At least the date of our flight home conveniently coincided with the end of our mandatory isolation, so we didn’t feel guilty boarding the plane – which thankfully departed on time, connected in Heathrow without complications, and our baggage made it back to Arizona with us – all serious concerns with the massive disruptions of air service in Europe and especially Heathrow.

Oh well. We’re home, feeling fine, and didn’t suffer too badly thanks to our fully vaccinated and boostered status. I am rather put off of international travel for the indefinite future, however!

Posted by Carol in England

The Joys of International Travel

The joys of international travel! This is my first trip overseas in several years, a photo workshop to the UK. Our evening flight out of Phoenix was delayed by two hours. Missed the connection in London to Edinburgh. After navigating massive queues of stranded travelers, we were rebooked on the last flight out to Edinburgh, which also ran late. Instead of arriving mid-afternoon at our beautiful hotel in the heart of charming old town Edinburgh, we arrived past midnight in the pitch black.

Add to that, I put my debit card in an ATM at Heathrow to get some British pounds sterling. The ATM ate my card. While walking through the terminal I spotted a television screen flashing a Breaking News banner –  British Air (our airline) is planning to go on strike in July. Our return flight is July 7. I wonder how long we’ll actually be visiting the lands of my forefathers???

I’m writing this from a charming country cottage in a bucolic seaside resort town named Seahouses on England’s coast. The photo workshop was originally scheduled for summer of 2020, but was canceled with the onset of Covid. Postponed again in 2021 due to Covid. Third strike and you’re out, so here we are, vaccinated and boosted to the hilt and wearing our masks, even though about 95% of fellow travelers are not. Covid variants are on the rise in Europe and the UK. Add to that, the photo workshop is meant to focus on seabirds on the England’s Northumberland coast. But avian flu is currently decimating the seabird populations. The boat trip out to Bass Rock which hosts the world‘s largest gannet breeding colony (150,000 birds) was canceled. What else can go wrong? Can only get better, right??

And yes, it did get better! Once we connected with our group of congenial bird-loving photographers and our indefatigable leader, Denise Ippolito of Creative Adventures, all the glitches were dealt with and we are having a lovely time. We’re sharing a charming country cottage with individual bedrooms and a communal great room, situated in bucolic countryside with rolling pastureland and even a castle crowning a distant hill.

We sailed to Inner Farne Island, where Northern Terns and Puffins abound, with a little extra excitement as we rescued a stranded tour boat that was dead in the water. Our crew towed it to safety before landing us on the island for an hour of shooting time. On the return voyage, our boat was joined by a pod of at least 100 exuberant dolphins who were literally somersaulting themselves clear of the water.

To replace the canceled tour of Bass Island, we took a day trip 4 hours south to Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, home of the world’s largest land-based breeding colony of gannets. A gannet is a handsome, large, white seabird with a wingspan of 6 feet. Many more bird varieties congregate on the chalk sea cliffs, half a million birds in total. Yesterday we took it easy, staying close to home, with an outing to the village of Bamburgh at the foot of Bamburgh Castle, and a stroll down the beach and nearby cliffs in Seahouses, where we were greeted by a clutch of Common Eider ducklings before photographing the Kittiwake gulls nesting on the cliffs.

More to come – after the workshop Mike and I are staying on for another week to take a quick tour through the Scottish Highlands, Isle of Skye and Inverness. You can view my collection of ‘keeper’ images by clicking the link below.

Posted by Carol in England

Backyard Bobcats

Naptime

Yesterday I walked past a window in my house and out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a small bobcat sleeping in the garden. We’re in the hottest part of summer and this kitty had found a shady, cool spot to hang out on a 100º plus day. I grabbed my iphone to catch some video and snapshots. I was only a couple of feet away on the other side of the windowpane, but the bobcat had no idea I was there.

I consider myself to be extraordinarily fortunate to live in a riparian area that creates a wildlife corridor for Arizona’s desert creatures. Bobcats are frequent visitors. I often see them strolling along our driveway, or lapping water out of the fountain, completely relaxed in what they surely consider their own private estate. Presumably, they offer some semblance of rodent control as well!

Below are a few shots I’ve captured of our resident felines over the years. Usually I don’t have my ‘big’ camera with me when I happen to spot one, but occasionally I luck out. I just thought I’d share my enjoyment of these beautiful creatures while my recent encounter was fresh in my mind.

Click photo to play slideshow.

Posted by Carol in Arizona

The Raven Logs: Back to Auckland

© Ivor Wilkins

…from an email dated Mar. 29, 2005

“After our diving adventure in the Cavallis, the following day we headed out to sea and cruised 40 or 50 miles south. With the wind non-existent, we substituted the motor and cruised along at about eight knots. Because the water was glassy smooth, we were able to spot schools of tuna nearby from the ruffled surface marking their passage. Rod trolled with his favorite lure but sadly failed to hook one. We had to go to the fish market in Auckland to have tuna steaks for dinner.

We anchored overnight back in Tutukaka Harbor and the next day motored another 40 miles or so to Kawau Island to spend the night. There is an old governor’s mansion on this island, but unfortunately, we arrived too late to take the tour. Instead, we went for an hour-long hike (in drizzling rain) from the mansion to an old coastal copper mine. On the way, we scared up three or four wallabies! Apparently then-Governor Grey in the 1800s imported a certain kind of wallaby from Australia to populate the grounds. This species of wallaby is now extinct in Australia but thriving on Kawau, so they are being exported back to Australia to try to reestablish the population. They look like tiny miniature kangaroos.

The next morning we sailed to Waiheke Island for a 2-day visit. Waiheke is a well-developed island not too far from Auckland. Some residents commute daily by ferry to work in Auckland. There are some twenty-plus wineries on the island and it has a pleasant vacation vibe. We dinghied ashore and climbed up a hill to the Te Whau Winery where we sampled their red wine. Because it was Good Friday, we could purchase wine by the glass but they weren’t allowed to sell it by the bottle. Mike and I then took off for what was intended to be a leisurely walk but which turned into a 2-1/2 hour partial circumnavigation of the island.

Easter weekend is different in New Zealand from what we’re used to in the U.S. It is apparently the second biggest holiday after Christmas, and a lot of businesses were closed from Friday through the following Monday. In addition, a large portion of restaurants and cafes were closed as well. The ones that remained open tacked an extra 20% on top of their usual prices for the privilege of eating there!

Sunday morning we sailed from Waiheke to Auckland, making sure we arrived in plenty of time to attend a Norah Jones concert that night. The winds were pleasantly moderate, so we enjoyed sailing the entire way. Every time Rod spotted another boat under sail headed in our same general direction he had a tendency to make a race out of it, unbeknownst to our competitors. We tacked back and forth the whole trip, which is not the norm for a cruising boat but was good practice for us newbies.


Posted by Carol in New Zealand

Horse Show Pan Blurs

I’m at a horse show this week, so it seems appropriate to feature equestrian-themed images. I’m having fun playing around with pan blurs – a camera setting where the shutter speed is set to slow. When I’m trying to freeze action I set my camera at 1/2000 second. For pan blurs I slow it down to 1/30 second. This causes all motion to be blurred. The challenge is to ‘pan’ the camera to follow the subject, trying to capture something significant sharp and in focus even as the rest of the image is blurred and streaked from the movement of the camera as it follows the horse and rider.

The successes are few and far between! I might take a thousand images at high speed and discard all but a handful. Below is an example of a fail, to give you an idea. And even when I successfully catch the focus, the position of the subject matters as well. There is no pleasure in viewing an awkward gesture, in focus or not!

Here is the same horse, in the same class – one of the few successes among the many throwaways. The camera autofocus locked in on his head and neck, plus the rider – just enough to give the photo a focal point of clarity while everything else blurs, adding to the impression of motion and speed.

Show jumping is a colorful sport, with brightly painted jumps and gaily waving flags to frame the horse/rider combinations. As a result, in post-processing, I like to amp up the saturation to add to the artistry of the finished image. This one has been added to my online portfolio.

Posted by Carol in California

ShoutOut Arizona Magazine Article

Meet Carol Parker | Photographic Artist

I am excited that ShoutOut Arizona Magazine released a feature story about my photography online. This week I thought I’d share it with you. Click on the link below to read the entire article. I hope you enjoy this peek into my background and motivation!

Posted by Carol in Arizona

The Raven Logs: The Rainbow Warrior

…from an email dated Mar. 29, 2005

“We sailed north to the Bay of Islands as I reported in my last travelog post, ending the journey at the Cavalli Islands where a wreck called the Rainbow Warrior has been relocated to create a marine preserve. The Rainbow Warrior was a Greenpeace vessel sunk in the 1980s in Auckland Harbor by the French Secret Service! The bombs used to sink it were sneaked into New Zealand aboard yachts and submarines.

Anouk is a licensed PADI Dive Instructor, a real bonus for Mike and me. Although we both had learned to scuba dive in decades past – I in high school and Mike a few years after we met – the technology has changed so dramatically that we both needed to learn the skills again pretty much from scratch.

We have purchased all our necessary dive gear in the town of Kerikeri and are now fully outfitted with tanks, regulators, BCD vests, dive computers, wet suits, etc., ready to undertake our first big scuba adventure. Anouk gave us a refresher course in dive theory and took Mike and me individually on a training dive in clear calm water where we could sink down about ten feet below the surface to a sandy bottom. There we practiced techniques such as clearing our masks, losing and retrieving our masks, sharing air with our “buddy”, hand signals, and other crucial skills.

Having passed Anouk’s inspection, it was on to the Cavallis where we were fortunate to be able to anchor for the night. Usually the sea is rough and choppy in that area, making for an uncomfortable anchorage, but we lucked onto calm conditions. The water was so clear we could look down from the deck of the boat and see individual seashells on the bottom twenty-five feet below. The shipwreck lies at a depth of 20-25 meters, making our inaugural dive quite the exploit.

Anouk and I went first as a buddy pair, and Mike and Rod took their turn after she and I resurfaced. In the clear blue water, the wreck was brightly colored with the pinks, purples, greens, blues, oranges, and yellows of thousands of small reef fish and beds of anemones. We spotted a moray eel and a scorpion fish in addition to hundreds of more common varieties. Anouk scribbled a note to me underwater on her dive slate – “WOW!”. The dive was one of the highlights of our entire vacation and has really whet our appetite for diving in Tonga and Fiji where the water is warmer and the fish even more colorful.”


Posted by Carol in New Zealand

Happy Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is almost here. Actually, my husband Mike wished me a Happy Mother’s Day last Sunday until I told him he was a week early and he had to issue a retraction;-)

There’s always something new to learn in our digital world. The recent release of iMovie 3.0 on my iPhone made it possible to very easily create a little video by just throwing in a selection of video clips and photos. The app automagically organizes them into a movie with music, transitions, the whole works. I made the clip above to celebrate moms of all kinds, whether two-legged, four-legged or no legs at all!

I have been running a drawing to win a free print of the polka-dotted zebra foal Tira and his mother. This Sunday I will be selecting the lucky winner. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you are automatically included in the draw. If you, or someone you know, would like the chance to win, go ahead and share this with them so they have a chance to sign up before the deadline.

Click here to enter the drawing >>

A Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there. And best of luck to everyone in the free print drawing!

Posted by Carol in Africa

The Raven Logs: Even More North Island Cruising

…continued from an email dated Mar. 19, 2005

“The next day Anouk and I left the guys on the boat and took the ferry across the bay from Russell to the slightly larger town of Paihia, where we had a good time browsing through the shops. I came home with boating shorts, a sarong, and Maori pants, all of which are quite different from my usual wardrobe at home but are eminently suitable for the sailing lifestyle, especially when the weather is warmer in Fiji and Tonga this summer.

Saturday we sailed out of Russell and anchored off another idyllic island where we rather overdid the exercise routine. After lunch Mike and I went on an even more challenging up and down hike around the island. This track is touted as an archaeological tramp, featuring multiple remnants of early Maori habitation and fortifications. We passed close by a fishing camp that was established by Zane Grey. To me, he is known as a famous and prolific author of American western fiction, but in New Zealand he is celebrated as a famous fisherman from back in the 1920s.

Being suitably hot after the hike, a swim looked good so I donned mask, snorkel, and fins and swam from the boat to the beach and back, which probably came close to half a mile. Mike worried about me so he came to my rescue with the dinghy but was sent back passenger-less as I wanted to swim both ways. I seem to have a lot of built-in natural flotation and the swim fins make it easy.

This morning Anouk and I went for an early morning shortened version of yesterday’s hike, did some gym exercises at the top of a knoll, went back to the boat and swam boat-beach-boat again, and then decided it was a perfect day for scuba training – so out came the tanks and gear. Anouk gave me a good introductory briefing and then we dove down to the sandy bottom where she drilled me on several diving techniques that are important from a safety standpoing, and then we paddled around underwater for a bit.

Needless to say, that was a pretty vigorous morning. I have decided the very best feature of this boat is the hot freshwater shower on the stern swim step. As we board the boat after a swim or dive, we can immediately rinse the salt off with nice warm water and even shampoo our hair if so desired.

Tonight we are back in a big marina called Opua Marina. This is the departure and returns port for ocean-going yachts headed from New Zealand towards distant shores, returning again at the end of the cruising season. Raven will be stationed here again in late May, looking for a weather window to make the 1,000-mile passage to Tonga. In the meantime, we plan to rent a car tomorrow and travel to the slightly bigger again town of Kerikeri for some sightseeing and shopping. Hopefully, we’ll be able to purchase our own dive gear in town and stop borrowing Rod’s and Anouk’s stuff.”


Posted by Carol in New Zealand