Like species such as the Bald Eagle, Northern Gannets don’t have their adult plumage until year four and later. They pair for life and start nesting after age four. Their plumage is variable until then (see below). Avian flu went through the Cape Mary Bird Ecological Reserve in 2022 like wildfire killing 20-40% of the 40,000 Gannets. “The Beach was covered with carcasses” the biologist told me. With the mortality rate, this year a number of “younger” birds paired up and were stepping up with the older birds now missing would have been breeder. How this will turn out only time will tell.

Above is the one individual I really loved to photograph, who I called “Piano Keys” because of the pattern on its wings. It’s a three to four year old. Almost is pure white. Below you will see the various age classes with two year old on far left, three year old, 3-4 year old and 4-20 year old on far right. Once they leave the nest, they “crash” land into the ocean where their flight instruction begins. They survival after that is pretty certain, unless of natural disaster strikes. But like all, experience counts for a lot of that longevity, you could simply say, better with age.

Then, literally within minutes there was the pair! Two Razorbills on a ledge, their nest platform (they use rock for a nest). Over the next five days we came to find there are approximately 1600 Razorbills nesting at Cape Mary Bird Ecological Reserve but the vast majority of them are around the corner where we cannot get to. That didn’t matter to me because as I always say when it comes to bird photography, it just take one! Nesting season is in full swing which means lots of activity. The nest you see below is the only nest site we could see, but there were at least three others below our feet tucked in on the cliff we were standing on. We could see them fly in and then vanish below our feet so we knew they were there but we couldn’t see them.

Then one afternoon one blessed us by perching for a very short period on a point of rock right in front of us (the photo above). My dear friend Eric brought back a much better shot than I did of this moment but I was over the moon just seeing a Razorbill so close and intimate. Even though it was for just a few minutes, it’s what keeps me going out in search of species I would love to see and photograph. It’s so well worth the 40 years!

“Don’t get between a mother bear and her cubs” is good advice for sure but this doesn’t mean you can’t be amongst them as they go about their daily travels. The tides on Kodiak Island rule all activity, bears and human. The grass flats in which we are standing in about another thirty minutes would all be underwater. Bears have no problem swimming. Photographers with long glass, yeah they need a boat. We’d been with this family for quite a while, the rising tide slowly moving them in our direction. We didn’t approach them one foot, they came to us. That means they were doing it on their terms so they were comfortable with our being there. The most important thing, I realized the path they wanted to take to leave the flats and go up the hill during high tide. We left that path clear so they could comfortably do just that. And that’s what that look is all about. The ears are forward, the eyes wide open, the gate was slowly and easy. Mom was saying basically, “all good, we’re walking past, stay where you are and all will be good.” And so it was. You can see at the top of the landing page the video of their passing. They were fifteen feet or so away when they slid into the river and moved over to the other side and up the hillside. That was a que to get in the boats and float back to the lodge. We got the shots, the cub were nursed high and dry and life moved forward. That’s what that look meant.

They were there last year. They were there the year before. They were this year and as soon as I saw them the trigger flipped in my mind. I am often asked if there are species I want to photograph that I hadn’t yet. The Harlequin Duck is one I have photographed but not very well (suckie actually) and not for a very long time. They are incredibly shy and take either a water approach or time to make the shot. And if you don’t catch them in their spring finery, then what’s the point. As you can see, the drake is a spectacular bird!

A couple of weeks back when I was on Kodiak I saw a pair in this one location below camp the first morning. Birds and bees were in the air which gave me a fighting chance to get close physically. When love is in the air, birds tend to ignore us. The first morning they didn’t show up. The second morning it was gray skies and I settled for Black Oystercatchers (ok, they are a cool bird too!). The third morning the light was decent but there were no birds. I waited there on the shore with the Z 8 / Z600f4 in hand for twenty minutes or so (I shot all handheld). Then the pair splashed in right in front of me. Within another fifteen minutes there were twenty of them and I was in heaven making some shots I long waited for. It was one of those moments when until I had them in the viewfinder I had forgotten just how much I wanted to photograph them. One of many long lost personal desires.