Hunting for what really matters

Watching this female Northern Harrier at Crockett Lake the other day I couldn’t stop thinking about why I am so happy.

It’s because I love living so close to nature.  The harrier glides effortlessly over the marsh, studying everything that moves. Watching such a specialized hunter relaxes and fascinates me.  It reminds me that we have much in common with our wild cousins. We all have a niche to fill and need wholesome places to live and hunt. We have a new generation to raise.  To survive, we must adapt and learn, pick our battles and focus on what really matters.

But everything comes with tradeoffs.  The price of a rural, island lifestyle is that we don’t have as much convenience – or stress -- as we did where we came from.  Prices are a little higher but the payback is priceless. That, to me, is "what really matters."

We locals love to say we support our small-town shops.  They provide jobs and tax revenue to strengthen our local economy.  They are a big part of what makes our communities distinctive, charming and vibrant.

So I was horrified when a friend told me of this conversation she overheard the other day in a local shop.

“I’m thinking about ordering this book,” a customer asked the bookshop owner. “Can you beat Amazon’s price?”

“Oh hi, Sis!” the owner said.  (Yes, it really was the owner’s sister.)  “Let me check.”  A moment later the owner explained, “I’ll be glad to order it for you but it’ll be about $2 more.”

“Oh, don’t bother,” her sister said. “I’ll order it from Amazon.”

Please think about the implications of this on several levels.

To get into the right mental frame for some clear thinking, may I suggest an hour with the harriers at Crockett Lake?

Finding a vision for island living

Our vine maple, one of nature's weed trees.

I love this season of colorful vine maples and ripening huckleberries in our half-wild back yard. We live in a forest setting so you might say the view never changes – just trees and sky.

But what's changing constantly for Sue and me are the birds and wildlife that come and go all day.

We look up and see deer grazing or a coyote slinking across the yard. We check a certain tree overlooking our orchard and find Bubba, our owl friend, sleeping off a hard night. And we dodge fir cones the squirrels rain down on us as they strip the trees to stockpile reserves for the winter. 

A Cedar Waxwing brings salal berries to its young in our yard.

Moving here from the city in the 1980s my intentions for the yard were quite different. My dream was to eradicate the native brush and rotting snags and replace them with a weedless, sterile lawn and the kinds of flowers I’d admired for years in city yards.

With power tools and poisons, I would conquer every square inch of our yard, rid our view of huckleberries, pave our gravel road and plant a rose garden.

This season's huckleberries are plumping up right now.

I asked a local nursery about chemicals to kill weeds and moss, grow grass, and stamp out fungus and Black Spot. To my surprise, they answered as non-judgmentally as they could that they didn’t carry poisons or encourage their use.

It took me a long time to get that it isn't a step forward to conquer and replace nature -- just the opposite. Huckleberries and salal are a magnet for the birds and animals that now bring beauty and mystery to our lives every day. These hardy bushes provide shelter to ground-nesting birds,  rabbits and voles, which attract other wildlife to our yard to hunt.

A Red-breasted Sapsucker eats our huckleberries.

Some might say an old, rotting snag is ugly, but it’s beautiful if you love the sensational Pileated Woodpeckers that come to jackhammer it.   

Last summer we watched elegant Cedar Waxwings feed their gangly newborns in a tree by our deck. And we delighted when Northern Flickers brought their vulnerable young to peck ants from our crumby lawn, which is riddled with dandelions the rabbits eat. Every winter, our berry-laden bushes attract colorful visitors such as Red-breasted Sapsuckers to brighten the view outside our windows.

Like many other people, we put out a hummingbird feeder each spring to welcome the tiny Rufous Hummingbirds that migrate thousands of miles to return here -- specific individuals often showing up in the same yards where they were banded in past years! But we don't kid ourselves. We know they aren't here for a few cups of sugar water in a plastic dish. They come in droves for the blossoming salmonberry bushes that grow wild in the woods.

This Varied Thrush had a winter feast on our crabapples.

The wild creatures are a huge part of our quality of life. It's one of the reasons Sue and I support Whidbey Camano Land Trust in their work to preserve farms, forests and other healthy habitat.

I've gradually learned we don’t have to control everything. Better to leave nature alone as much as reasonably possible so it can create something beautiful. If we interfere too much, we’ll just screw it up and make a poorly-functioning, problematic mess.

Sue and I were guests recently at the waterfront home of a gracious couple who live on a high bluff overlooking Puget Sound. They watch boats all day.  They are enjoying their golden years dining on crabs and salmon they catch from their own boat in front of their own home. It’s the Puget Sound dream!

What could be healthier than fresh salmon?  Well, just not too much, too often, because the flesh might be somewhat toxic. The experts say it's probably safe in moderation, but be careful if you're pregnant or nursing. That's the flip side of the Puget Sound dream.

This handsome young coyote had a sweet tooth for Gravensteins.

Our friends' view is breathtaking.  But as is typical of high-bluff properties, they have a long pipe called a tight-line that carries roof runoff including any moss-killing products down the bluff to the beach, where forage fish lay their eggs. Salmon feed voraciously on those forage fish, to the extent that they hatch and survive.

This couple’s pride is their perfect front yard, a fairyland of manicured beds, interconnecting lawns, vegetable plots and winding paths. They've cleared the trees and brush and scraped away centuries of ground cover.

"Bubba," the Great-horned Owl, is our rodent police.

Now to their dismay, their new lawn is sprouting buttercups – even after they applied weed-n-feed. Their vision is to gaze at a deep, lush carpet of green, so they asked us about products to kill the broadleafs.

“It depends on your values and vision,” I blurted, then instantly regretted the edge in my voice. The last thing I wanted to do was attack the wonderland our hosts had worked so hard to create.

What I wanted to explain is that beauty means different things to different people. I’ve come to believe the most beautiful and joyful thing in my world is to live in a place that is healthy for wildlife and humans.  Buttercups aren’t so bad. Weeds grow where we disturb the soil, but not where nature runs the show.

Even this guy makes us smile.

Plants need excessive watering when we introduce the wrong ones. Leave nature alone and it will choose the right, drought-tolerant plants. Grass is a good ground cover for septic drain-fields but not much else when you live in a climate of dry summers and moss-promoting winters.

Of course most people don't have the space to live quite as wild as we do. But even in a built-up neighborhood -- in fact especially there -- why not steer away from chemicals?  Keep some natural ground cover and pursue a different vision. Offer the wildlife a sliver of wild habitat, safe food and clean water.  If we all do that, our earth and marine waters will be healthier.

Blacktail deer bring quiet grace to our forest setting.

To me, a few yellow flowers in a lawn aren’t ugly; they’re beautiful. They make a statement about what's really important versus just cosmetic.

They are a sign the birds can bring their young to eat from that lawn without getting poisoned, and that we aren’t poisoning the ground from which we draw the previously-used water we drink every day of our lives.

Everything is connected. Beauty is more than skin deep -- much, much more.

Bird lovers strike it rich with Craig & Joy Johnson’s fourth photo book

Just when I had given up hope there would be any more books of wild bird photography from Craig and Joy Johnson, they sprang a surprise.

.

About half the photographs were taken on Whidbey.

Our Pacific Northwest Birds and Habitat: Featuring the Puget Sound Area rolled off the press last week at Printing Control in Tukwila. The 100-page, landscape-style volume depicts 196 species. That's 16 more than their previous book. Craig photographed at least half of them on Whidbey Island. 

First copies will start showing up in island shops this weekend, and within days the handsome book will be on sale for $24.95 throughout the Puget Sound area. But you can request an autographed copy now by ordering it right from their website, http://www.pugetsoundbackyardbirds.com/.

At home in their backyard bird sanctuary. Pedersen photo

As with all of Craig and Joy's books, this one will be sold exclusively in independent bookstores, gift shops and wild bird stores -- not box stores, cookie-cutter chains or discount websites. The dollars and sales taxes it generates will go to work directly in the local economy where they are most needed, benefiting the authors, printers and shopkeepers of our island community and Western Washington. Craig and Joy printed just 2,000 copies and I predict they will disappear fast.

The Freeland couple's goal for this book was to make it educational and inspirational, with more emphasis than ever on the habitats in which different species live, eat, hunt and nest.

Craig visits with Dennis Paulson in April. Pedersen photo

To make sure of that, Craig asked a renowned bird expert and biologist, Dennis Paulson, to review the text and photography. Paulson offered many helpful suggestions, which they incorporated into the final version. 

Craig admits he and Joy had not expected to publish this book because they're broke from medical bills and lost income. But they've sown a lot of goodwill in the community through their generosity over the years. Some of it flowed back to them when a friend, Coupeville businessman Karl King of Kingfisher Books, offered to loan them the money to print the book. 

Karl King

As always, the Johnsons hope readers will buy the book from local bookstores and shops. In  case you’d like get to your copy from Karl King himself, his shop, Kingfisher Books on Coupeville’s Front Street, is open from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. six days a week, but closed Thursdays.

Craig and Joy also hope many people will order autographed copies directly from their website.  The price to the buyer is the same either way. But, by skipping the extra step of wholesaling, the Johnsons can recoup their up-front costs much faster when people purchase the book directly from them.

Now, a bit about what it took to print this book.

“It was an insane amount of work,” Johnson freely admits. No one who hasn’t done it can imagine the planning and hours of computer time it takes to design such a project, let alone take thousands of extraordinary photographs of birds, all hand-held with a heavy, zoom lens, at exceptionally close range.
 

At the printing plant while the press was rolling.

Then there is the actual printing -- the crucial part no one ever mentions and everyone takes for granted. Printing Control, in Tukwila, Wash., deserves some big compliments.

Clearly, this book is gorgeous and the color is flawless. That doesn’t happen by accident. Craig is a graphic designer, photographer, artist and former print salesman for the commercial printing industry, which means he pushed the limits all the way. Printing Control measured up to the challenge.

"Rufous" features Craig's watercolors.

For a printing job even to be satisfactory, everything must go right including the binding. This is a landscape-format book, which puts extra stress on the spine. 

Building greater strength into the spine added significant cost to the job and Printing Control simply ate it to stay within Craig’s budget. That says a lot about the printer’s commitment to the job and to the client. Printing companies, like every other business, are struggling hard with the economic downturn.

I am proud that Printing Control is the same company that produced my book, Whidbey Island’s Special Places. Last year Craig chose them to print a children’s book he and Joy wrote that features his watercolor art, The Amazing Hummingbird Story of Red Rufous. It is on sale right now in many Puget Sound area shops.

The big Heidelberg press at Printing Control.

I am also proud that the president of Printing Control, Bob Bracht, is a friend from my past life when I managed a magazine and other publications for Safeco Corporation. At that time Bob was a sales representative for a large, Portland printer and won our annual report business several years in a row. Between then and now, Bob’s career apparently prospered, with him coming to Seattle and becoming president of Printing Control.

Bob is not only smart, likable and knowledgeable, but fun-loving and enthusiastic. And he loves the Northwest, which may have something to do with Printing Control being the greenest, most environmentally-conscious printer in the Greater Seattle area and the first to win the top, five-star rating from EnviroStars. That’s one of the reasons Printing Control was the right company to print my book and also a brilliant choice for Our Pacific Northwest Birds and Habitat.

The Varied Thrushes -- Our Golden Visitors of Winter

I can't get enough of the Varied Thrushes that have been brightening the snowy landscape outside my window during this recent cold snap. When a late-afternoon shaft of light hits one of these birds, the effect is stupendous.

The thrushes appear in our yard just about every winter, drawn here I suppose by all the freeze-dried huckleberries we have to offer. Our many huckleberry bushes are a magnet also for Spotted Towhees and sometimes a Red-breasted Sapsucker.

But the real prize for the thrushes seems to be our Crabapple tree.  The tree blooms beautifully in the spring and then produces a bumper crop of fruit for which we don't really have a use.

As a result, hundreds of crabapples hang from the tree every year until about this time, when the thrushes and other birds show up and strip it. And from my standpoint, providing a winter meal for the wild birds is a perfectly good use for those crabapples.

Of all our winter visitors, the thrushes are the hardest to photograph because they detect the slightest movement inside the house, such as when I reach slowly for the sliding glass window to make an opening for my 400 mm lens. The click of the single-lens reflex shutter also drives them away. But the crabapple tree is just far enough from my office that they will continue feeding while I snap images.

Before I started watching birds, I had the idea our woods were full of mostly boring, brown birds of nondescript plumage.

The truth is just the opposite. Our woods are teeming with very colorful birds, incredibly specialized and with very different feeding and hunting habits. I have far to go in fully appreciating what is all around me and the dramas that take place every day in our yard. But I've learned just enough to to be dazzled and intrigued by the wonder of it.

For Craig Johnson and wild birds, the benefits flow both ways

Note: My best tip for anyone planning to attend Sound Waters University, Saturday, Feb. 5, at South Whidbey High School, is to sign up for any class taught by Craig and Joy Johnson. They photograph and paint wild birds, write about them, publish books and educate. This year they are teaching "The Woodpeckers of Whidbey Island." To get on the mailing list for Sound Waters enrollment, which opens Jan. 7, click here: Sound Waters University, and then click on the blue button marked "Join our Sound Waters Mailing List." For more about wild birds: Craig and Joy Johnson's website.

Craig Johnson with a little Downy Woodpecker on the screen saver.

By DAN PEDERSEN

Is it crazy to think that specific birds coming into Craig Johnson's yard in Freeland recognize and trust him? I don't think it is. The winged activity in Johnson's yard on any given afternoon is a complex drama with many sub-plots. In the middle of it all, studying every detail and loving it, sits Johnson.

Researchers have documented that crows recognize specific human beings and will hold onto a deep grudge against people who do them wrong -- even alerting their friends about these human enemies. Other crows learn second-hand to recognize these evil-doers and join in outbursts of angry scolding and mobbing in the future.

Male Pileated Woodpecker at Johnson's suet feeder.

So it may not be a stretch to assume it also works the other way. Some of the birds that approach Johnson on his deck know they can trust him -- that he's one of the gentle, non-threatening, good guys. Some of Johnson's regulars are even Steller's Jays, corvids closely related to the crows.

"Oh, yeah, I think the big Pileated Woodpecker recognizes me for sure, just because I see that individual bird so much," Johnson says. "He knows I'm here. As long as I am mindful and don't make any sudden moves he will stay on the tree and won't fly away."  The tree is just a few feet away.

"And I'm probably getting some of the same Northern Flickers over and over." Johnson is generous with treats, tossing peanuts to the normally-wary Steller's Jays that sneak closer and closer on the overhanging limbs and hop toward him on the deck. "I can tell the difference between the different ones. Certain individuals will come almost within arm's reach."

Northern Flicker

He laughs because the very shrewd jays and a gullible Douglas squirrel named G-Dog compete for those peanuts and steal from each other, but the jays always win. They watch G-Dog stash them. When he turns his back, they raid the cache.

All five species of Whidbey Island woodpeckers visit Johnson's yard, taking advantage of native landscaping, nearby conifers and a suet feeder. "The Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers can be very tolerant when you fill the feeder," Johnson says. "I'd say I've done more woodpecker photography in the yard than in the woods because our back yard is so uncontrolled. They come and bring their young. All the species have brought their fledglings here except possibly the Sapsucker."

Watching those juveniles is one of Johnson's great rewards. "I have many photos from our yard where the juvenile Northern Flickers are watching the dad -- very intently watching him -- and he's feeding them ants from the lawn. I mention this so that maybe a few people will decide they can get along without using insecticides. I've watched the juvenile Hairy Woodpeckers, watched the red nape patch move from the forehead to the back of the head as they grow. I love that, especially this year with my health."

Red-breasted Sapsucker

The proof of all this yard activity is some sensational close-ups Johnson has taken with a simple point-and-shoot camera while sitting on his deck on sunny days. But this is where the story gets harder to write. Many people know of Johnson's incredible hand-held images taken with a big Nikon, single-lens reflex camera and a 400mm telephoto lens. Fewer people know Johnson no longer has that camera, nor the reason.

An aggressive, untreatable, neurological disease in the MS family is attacking his body, muscular control, vision, balance, computer-use, livelihood and, at times, mental focus. He cannot carry that camera any more nor go into the field to photograph birds. So now the birds come to him and that is an immense blessing.

"When you're out in nature it's inspiring. It's rejuvenating for me. When the birds come I don't think about my jobs or problems, or even my back ache. We don't have a TV here and haven't had one for 20 years. During the daylight hours in the summer especially, the outdoors is our break. I come out from my drawing table and sit on the deck and admire the birds. I'm thankful to have a yard like this, land that has not been over-groomed or controlled. Without that I wouldn't have the connection to nature. I'm not mobile. I'm very thankful the people who own this house agree (the Johnsons rent).  They're on the same page."

Tiny, Downy Woodpecker on Madrone branch.

"People come over here -- birders -- and say my gosh this is perfect habitat. The birders acknowledge all the ocean spray, the thrushes coming out, woodpeckers . . .  This little madrona tree next to the railing here, most people would cut it down, but just in the last two months, every day, there have been Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Bushtits flitting about, sallying insects, and tons of Chickadees. Having a habitat in your back yard can be huge for just being able to look out your window and take a break from whatever you're doing."

"That's what I tell people. There is a lot going on and if you have a nice, groomed yard, you are missing out."

Johnson points out that in addition to the therapeutic, almost meditative benefits of watching birds, he also benefits in human relationships. As the Johnsons deal with Craig's illness, they are being showered with love and support by many members of Whidbey Audubon Society who cherish them for their years of generosity with photographic images, watercolor art and educational presentations.

Hairy Woodpecker drinking at a clean birdbath.

"If you care for birds, you care for people," Johnson says. "Whether you love whales, trees, birds, a clean lake -- if you care about any of those things, you're also about humanity."

Johnson says he has never thought of himself as a photographer. "Not really. I've done it, yeah, but I just love birds. I wanted to capture the images so I could show others who might not have the time to see what the birds were doing. Bird photography was never to make money. It makes me feel better to just give the images to Whidbey Camano Land Trust or use them in our books. I do it to help nature and promote learning."

For their woodpecker presentation at Sound Waters University on Saturday, Feb. 5, Johnson says he hopes to inspire his audience and perhaps encourage them to learn a little more about woodpeckers and about the environment. "Maybe someone will decide to keep an old, dead snag in their yard instead of cutting it down."

Craig and Joy Johnson are the authors of a new children's book, The Amazing Hummingbird Story of Red Rufous, available for $9.95 plus tax from many island bookstores and shops, and elsewhere in the Puget Sound region. The book features Craig's beautiful watercolor paintings of hummingbirds and is highly educational. To order a copy directly from Craig and Joy, visit their website: http://pugetsoundbackyardbirds.com/

Life Among the Wildlife on Lazy Lopez

Transportation, a necessary evil.

Someone told me years ago that people who live on the south end of Lopez Island don't much like the north end.  It's a bit too high-pressure with basic services, lodging and a ferry terminal. 

Same on Whidbey. My wife, Sue, and I live on the south end, and boy, we sure don't like the north end -- the congested traffic, fast food and discount stores. We've been feeling a bit hemmed in lately. 

Kingfisher

So yesterday, my birthday-girl wife and I got an urge to explore the north-south divide on sleepy Lopez.  It seemed as far from civilization as we could get in one easy day. And the differences are real.

On north Lopez if you park in the middle of the road to photograph a Kingfisher, another car may come along in a few minutes and need to get around. On south Lopez, you're just happy to see the smoke from a woodstove on a chilly October morning.

Lopez is the third-largest island in the San Juans at 30 square miles, with 2,200 people. Most live in the north. Whidbey is 169 square miles with a population of 58,000 and again, most live in the north.

Sue and Duncan at Spencer Spit.

Our immediate destination was Spencer Spit State Park in the north, where we were the only human life except for a couple on a tandem bike we met as we were leaving, and two workers repairing an old outbuilding.

Trail to Shark Reef

One of the workers apparently sensed our loneliness or was dealing with his own, and came over to point out that Lopez in the off-season could be a bit quiet. "We can handle that," we assured him. "We're from Whidbey."

We enjoyed a Great-blue Heron stalking fish in the glassy shallows and gave our dog, Duncan, a spirited walk, but were really dreaming of a good cup of coffee. So we paid our dues to the hectic city, Lopez Village, before continuing south to a little dot on the map that had intrigued us, Shark Reef County Park.

This was every bit the gem we had hoped it would be. But the road doesn't lead to the water.  It just leads to a parking strip in the woods where you start a 15-minute, forest hike to a rocky bluff overlooking narrow San Juan Channel.

Great-blue Heron landing.

The surprisingly close view is of Cattle Point on the south end of San Juan Island, just across the channel. But the real view is at your feet.

The shore is steep. The birds and mammals are close, and seemingly unconcerned.

Yesterday we watched a Great-blue Heron hunt fish from a floating platform of bull kelp. Gulls and Harlequin Ducks swam among the rocks and kelp.

Nice crab.

One gull carried a small crab in its mouth while others raised an uproar.  Amongst it all, a lone Harbor Seal swam among the birds a few feet from our rock and rarely took its wary eye from us.  At one point the seal surfaced so breathtakingly close it startled me.

Harbor Seal and Gull.

"Holy cow," I exclaimed too loudly. The animal dove instantly.  I could clearly follow its speckled body as it swam north along the steep shore, just a few feet from the rocks, a few feet below the surface and a few feet from us. I've tried photographing Harbor Seals from boats and they always pop below about the time I raise my camera. 

Did I mention we were all alone?  I can't help it; I love places where our species is in the minority.

Hey, if I had a fish I'd toss it to you.

Sunset at Deception Pass, back on Whidbey.

The Constant Cycle of Birds

The Keystone Spit / Crockett Lake area of Central Whidbey Island is such a rich place to photograph wild birds, I check there almost every time I drive north. Saturday's weather was a gift -- lovely, warm sunshine and blue sky -- but the wind was whipping and I was not finding much.

In fact, I was just leaving when my eye caught the flash of wings, a small group of tiny birds flying in formation over the dark blue water of one of the spit's gravel ponds.


After a patient, slow approach on foot to the edge of the pond, I found the birds huddled against the wind atop a drift log.  Several were foraging in the shallows for insects and other small creatures.

The birds I had noticed were Western Sandpipers and they had stopped at Keystone Spit for a few hours or a day to eat and rest before resuming their annual migration south.

It was a good reminder for me that places such as Keystone support a constantly changing population. Where is that flock of Sandpipers today? Nisqually Delta?  Oregon Coast? What will I find at Keystone tomorrow?  It could be anything.  I can count on being surprised.

For the many birds making their annual, hemispheric migrations, Keystone is a key place to recharge, relatively free of human interference. The wildlife value seems obvious.

But what of the  human value of preserving natural areas such as Keystone, when we could, instead, develop these beautiful settings for upscale homes?

For me, it is pretty much the same as for the birds. I would not go to Keystone if it were filled with  houses. I would not experience the delights and surprises nature delivers at this wild place every day of the year.

An hour or so at Keystone, watching nature and reflecting on the beauty and diversity of life, recharges me so I can continue on my own journey.