Valentine Day broke with an unusual color palate spread across the southeastern sky. Bright coral-red clouds dominated, wispy and tenuous, like aurora borealis, against a darker blue sky. Between water and sky, lit windows were just visible as pinpricks of light.

For once, I didn’t doddle. I grabbed the camera as soon as I woke and caught the unnatural, red glow outside my window. At first, there was just enough light to shoot without a tripod. Within moments, there was too much light, the colors becoming progressively paler. Once again, I overrode the camera, manually reducing the exposure.

Due to its great distance, the formation was a little slower-moving than most. This once, ironically, I had other matters pressing, and couldn’t wait for the grand finale, the slow, stately march of the fire gods to the edge of the sky and oblivion. Regrettably, I can offer only three, closely spaced photos.

In December, when the sun is at its lowest point in the sky, and rises from the southeast, we think it only natural to see those gorgeous December dawns in the southeast as well. Now, however, the sun is rising more easterly — that bright wedge at the left-hand edge of the photos — yet again, this latest empyreal drama played out in the southeastern sky as its stage. What atmospheric restraint held it there? Why did it not follow the sun eastwards?

If you have answers, or thoughts, or similar experiences, please feel free to share them via the Comment box.

Click thumbnails, or use keyboard arrows to move among the slides. Click an image to enlarge it. When you see the little magnifying glass, or plus sign, click again for the sharpest image.

This early February dawn was well under way when I caught it. Only minutes earlier, when I first woke, a much larger display loomed outside my window. So fast did the formation move, that much of it was gone by the time I pulled myself together and grabbed my camera.

I shot the second frame seven minutes later. The sky had grown lighter — so much so that it appeared but a pale image on my camera’s screen. Cutting the exposure let me replicate the contrast and saturation of the first photo. By then, however, the color palette had shifted.

The photo was taken on February 6, 2012.

Comments?

Click thumbnails, or use keyboard arrows to move between the slides. Click an image to enlarge it. When you see the little magnifying glass, or plus sign, click again for the sharpest image.

Like Rodney Dangerfield, gulls don’t get the respect they deserve. We look at them, yet we rarely see them. We often regard them as lowly scavengers, and all too common ones at that.

I’m as guilty as the next person, but I’ve recently taken a fresh look. Like all scavengers, they are important to the ecosystem. They are intelligent, inquisitive, and resourceful, and can be elaborately social in behavior. Their daring acrobatics in the air, and graceful soaring are a joy to watch. To my ears, there’s no sound in nature more beautiful than the plaintive call of the gull.

Gull’s are not easy to identify. There are many species, and much variation within each. It takes time and patience to learn who’s who. I’ve made a little progress with the ones we see on the pond. I can usually identify the larger species, the Herring Gull, the Lesser Black-backed and the Great Black-backed. (That said, please regard any identifications I make here as tentative.) The smaller gulls are more difficult to learn, for the clues are less obvious.

This year, the larger gulls are present on the pond in much greater numbers than I can remember, especially the Great Black-backed. I’m used to seeing one or two of the latter; there must be eight or ten now. This biggest of all gulls can be aggressive, and will often attack another gull or duck to steal away its catch, or like a raptor, even take live prey, such as another bird or a rodent. Fortunately, we don’t see that occur very often on our pond. We don’t expect it of gulls as we do of hawks and eagles, so it can be distressing when it happens.

Gulls may nosedive or bellyflop to snatch scraps of food out of the water. The latter method allows them to fly off more quickly, but it can make an undignified “plop” when they hit the water. They are inventive when it comes to grabbing food, however, and can meet any challenge that presents itself.

Gulls are opportunists. In the slide show, we see them darting in and snatching scraps of food brought to the surface by feeding ducks. On the morning these photos were taken, the Mallards came around to our little cove for breakfast as usual. Dabbling ducks, they scoop up edibles from the water with their broad bills, but they also upend to reach decayed plants on the bottom. Here the water is shallow, and they can feed easily.

The morning held a surprise.
A small flock of Common Mergansers was visiting. They had been here about a week, arriving a few weeks earlier than usual, no doubt responding to the warm weather and absence of ice. They, too, were feeding, but farther out. They are diving ducks, and hunt primarily for small fish, using their serrated bills to grip a slippery catch. They hunt constantly, even while swimming along, diving quickly and then emerging seconds later some ten or twenty feet further on. My bird book says they may stay as long as the pond doesn’t freeze over. In fact, I’ve always known them to leave, eventually. Perhaps they become restless, or the fishing becomes spotty.

Between the home team of Mallards, and the visiting mergansers, with their promise of fish, there was plenty of activity to attract the gulls. They circled overhead excitedly, waiting for a chance to dive, apparently willing to expend a lot of energy for a tiny scrap of food. There was some pushing and shoving, too. I guess, this time of year, when food is scarce, the gulls can get mighty hungry.

Do you have a gull story you’d like to share? Please feel free to post it in the Comment box.

All images in this post were recorded on the morning of February 4, 2012.

Photos: TOP, 8:54 am, Mallards heading to their usual breakfast area in the shallow cove outside my window. BOTTOM, 9:45 am, Common Mergansers, farther out, diving for small fish. A female merganser, with brown crest, can be seen at the far right. Click on a photo to enlarge it.

Slide show: Click thumbnails, or use keyboard arrows to move among the slides. Click an image to enlarge it. When you see the little magnifying glass, or plus sign, click again for the sharpest image.