Reflections on a Landscape

I’m now at home in southern Michigan, roasting in 80-90˚F heat, and lamenting that I could not still be in the (slightly) cooler Churchill, Manitoba. Compared to the spindly spruces and ground-hugging shrubs of Churchill, the towering, green foliage of temperate broadleaf forests in the south is almost claustrophobic and oppressive. Every time I look out the window, the immense amount of green refracted through the glass makes me think I’m looking at the calm before a severe storm, but I always catch an obstructed glimpse of clear blue skies and a sweltering sun, and am left to reminisce about the openness I have become accustomed to over the last months.

The subarctic North is incomparable country. The land is flat to the horizon, and seemingly barren. The skies are vast and dynamic, with afternoon storms building under the soft light of prolonged twilight. The wildlife is keen and curious. Arctic Foxes and Polar Bears both come close to investigate a passerby (hopefully from the safety of a vehicle for the latter), and outlandishly large Arctic Hares feed calmly at an arm’s length, plucking the buds off Dryas flowers with outstretched lips and munching sublimely, but always watching with panoramic eyes; ptarmigan coolly (and rather stupidly) patrol the tundra nearby, with a slow gait and humorous clucking, and only seem alarmed when herding a new clutch of chicks.

Willow Ptarmigan

The plants are very different from those of the south as well. There are patches of dense and lush boreal forest, carpeted with a generous layer of soft lichens and mosses, creeping all the way up the craggy trunks of the predominant White Spruce, over an understory of Ledum groenlandicum and decumbens, Labrador Teas with strong, fresh scents. Then there are the sedge bogs and fens, where as you tread across a spongy substrate of moss and peat laid over permafrost, you can kneel to find more than half a dozen species of sedge in one square yard, among a plethora of other berries, wildflowers and insects. The composition and distribution of these plant communities, then, is foreign to a southerner, but even watching these plants blow in the wind gives one the impression of a remote and austere land. Instead of the therapeutic swaying of branches and rustling of leaves, the dwarf shrubs and short wildflowers twitch in these winds, yielding no such sign of warmth. Staring at the windswept tundra and the twitching of hardened plants, you feel as if you are watching a time lapse, as if all is passing in fast forward—maybe a fitting impression for the abbreviated passage of the fleeting arctic summer.

So much vibrant life is densely spread over the course of a few short summer months. The birds arrived en masse throughout May—huge flocks of snow geese filled the cold skies and shorebirds passed through the bogs and mudflats along the Churchill River, all in a frenzy to reach their breeding grounds. Throughout June, the fen was alive with the outlandish songs of shorebirds establishing territories, as nests were built and eggs were laid. With rising temperatures, plants and insects alike bloomed, and the multitude of eggs hatched in accordance, so as to take full advantage of the plethora. Likewise, the predators rose to face a similar plethora of young, flightless birds on gangly, weak legs.

Red Fox kits

Some birds survived their first month, however, and then it was time they left for the southern hemisphere. Come the end of July, the fen had cleared so thoroughly it was eerie. The sounds of so many birds we had grown accustomed to were already silenced; the birds which had arrived later than breeders in the south had also left sooner than those of more temperate climes. Many of them are now well on their way south to the wintering grounds, some (like the Godwits) travelling to the southernmost outposts of the western hemisphere, in Tierra del Fuego. There is no rest for these birds it seems; they are carried across the globe by the play of seasons, by the Earth’s orbit, as naturally and thoughtlessly as...wait for it...dust in the wind.

A Moving Image

Spending more than a decade devoted to watching birds can change a person (well, let’s be honest—all it takes is one quick glimpse). Anyways, I picked up photography simply because I wanted to document the birds I was seeing, and in recent years, it has become quite a passion. Reading Harry Potter can also change a person, however, and this is when I realized pictures could move! I was amazed that the wizarding world had found a way to make this possible. It’s not all that surprising, in retrospect…they’ve managed cooler things. But when I realized muggles had found out about this, and called it “video,” it rocked my world. I now have a DSLR that can capture HD video, and have just begun experimenting with it in earnest.

I’m starting to see that video is like photography, except better in so many ways. It’s also a lot harder to do. You can’t just snap off a bunch of pictures and pick the sharp one later, and crop it to your liking. You have to have the bird’s movements in mind, ideally, even before the bird does. And every minute move you make behind the lens is recorded in your extended composition—the shuffling around of the focus as the bird moves, the panning of the lens, your fingers scuffing about the mic, the tiniest swish of clothes, and your breath breathing. So, with this in mind, I am hoping to gradually acquaint myself with the finer points of this closely related but significantly different technique. And in the meantime, my videos will comprise short clips with poorly controlled audio interspersed with the humbler, kinder medium of days past: photographs¹.

Below is my most recent project, a collage of footage and photos recounting a transition into an unfamiliar summer– a subarctic summer. A summer whose sun never rests for more than a few hours, whose June is still flecked with deep drifts of snow, whose July is clouded with thick masses of mosquitoes, and whose every change is closely paralleled by its wild residents. As the snow melts, revealing vast areas of muddy bogs and leaving open water, Snow Geese pass by the thousands, making whirlwind stops to fuel their northward journey to the high arctic; as the brown and green tones of the tundra are slowly unveiled, Willow Ptarmigans follow suit, molting their snow white feathers in favor of a mottled brown, and stand out awkwardly as their patchy transition trails behind the seamless recession of snow. As temperatures rise and migrant passerines and shorebirds arrive on their breeding grounds, they begin to court and build nests, so as to hatch chicks in accordance with the peak in insect abundance. While the birds are pouring their existence into rearing young, predators take advantage of the propensity of eggs; Parasitic Jaegers descend on incubating birds and fiercely defend future meals from other would-be predators, like Herring Gulls; Red and Arctic Foxes prowl the bogs and tundra, sniffing out meals for their kits. This is the scene that I wanted to capture, on a new level that I have not yet explored, and here is the result:

(HD viewing may only be available by clicking the "youtube" icon in the lower right)

1 Disclaimer– I still, of course, have the utmost respect for photographs and their unique ability to convey a message or an emotion via a still image– they will never be obselete.

King of the Arctic

My heart was pounding and I was frantically (and visibly) shaking with excitement. I simply could not believe what I was seeing– it was so surreal that even now, three days later, I still can’t wrap my head around it. But let’s back up a bit. Let’s imagine I was having an incredible day birding (and this really is conjecture, because I wasn’t). Maybe I was driving down Goose Creek Road, a hotspot in Churchill, and I was lucky enough to see a Red Phalarope, Little Gulls, maybe a flyover Pomarine Jaeger, and then an American Three-toed Woodpecker flew across the road in front of me. Then maybe I made a stop at Cape Merry, an overlook at the Churchill River mouth, and picked out a Black-legged Kittiwake, and– we’ll just go crazy here (why not?)– a Northern Wheatear frolicking on the coastal bluffs. At this point, on my way back along Launch Road to the Studies Centre, I would happily joke that, given my luck, there should be a Gyrfalcon sitting by the side of the road– ideally perched on that lichen-covered rock right there. And then I might be so crazy as to imagine this bird being cooperative for photos, and sitting there on the lichen-covered rock on the Hudson Bay, just minding its own, hard-core Gyr business while I watched to my heart’s content. And then– no, never mind, I wouldn’t even dare to torture myself with imagining it was a white morph.

And this is the point (after another utterly failed attempt to photograph Pacific Loons) where my heart nearly stopped. In fact, had I eaten a Big Mac that day and clogged up my arteries just a bit more, I’m convinced I would have immediately died of cardiac arrest. Because as I glanced over my left shoulder to take yet another casual gaze at the beautiful, hazy blue Hudson Bay, I happened to notice a large, white falcon, sitting aloof on a lichen-covered rock, in a bed of coastal wildflowers, not twenty feet from the road!

I slammed on the brakes (gently, of course) and frantically cranked the window down. I clumsily stuck my lens out the window to grab a quick record, hoping it would stay put for another split second. Then I took another picture, and another. Then I took the time to adjust my awkward, twisted position behind the wheel, and was amazed to see the falcon still watching me, unamused. I slowly got out of the opposite side of the car, crept around to the back, and gradually made my way across the road, settling on my own lichen-covered rock, leaving just enough room in the frame to allow a flight shot, should it suddenly take flight.

In the meantime, my friend Madi had biked up to the falcon as well, and was watching from just a bit down the road. A few cars had slowly driven by, and a few stopped to watch for a few minutes. Despite all of this, the magnificent, white Gyr held his ground, absolutely unfazed. He was unstoppable, he knew it, and it showed. He sat, lifting his talons to clean the large weapons with his bill, watching flies and mosquitoes pass by, and occasionally sizing up one of the eight, young Bald Eagles circling overhead, or maybe one of the heavy Eiders zipping past. To behold this king of the far north, basking in its slot on the top of the food chain, was a rare and humbling experience.