Lens Envy And A Joshua Hawk

Every now and then I get this wild and crazy idea to do something wild and crazy. Now, I’m not talking about bungee jumping off a bridge above a wilderness New Zealand river canyon, or heli-skiing down a remote peak in the Wrangell Mountains of Alaska, or sky–diving out of a plane above the Tibetan Plateau and parachuting into some unsuspecting yak herder’s living room. What I’m talking about here is going out into a sub–freezing January morning to hang with a group of birders from the St. George, Utah Winter Bird Festival.

There were a couple of field trips offered with the festival that caught my interest, and since I had no plans involving Tibet this past weekend I signed up for the Saturday morning photography trip. I leaped out of bed at 6:00AM, fired myself up with three cups of coffee, layered myself beneath five pairs of thermals, and either buttoned or zipped myself into nearly every single piece of outerwear I own. For further fashionista warmth I wrapped my head in a scarf, two hats and a pair of ear bags. I would fidget with my camera controls through one pair of gloves.

The group gathered at a local park and was ready to drive the forty or so miles to Lytle Ranch before the sun was up. The plan was to photograph whatever happened to be flying, flapping, flittering, fluttering, soaring, swimming, circling, perching, nesting, roosting, tweeting, twittering, peeping, chirping, honking, taking off, riding the thermals or coming in for a landing with feet and flaps down.

As we bounced along out of town the conversation turned, as it naturally does with photographers, to different cameras and lenses. By the time someone mentioned they would readily purchase a $3000 lens they saw for sale on craigslist I knew I was way out of my league. I gently and lovingly cradled my point–and–shoot Canon PowerShot SX10IS while cleaning the lens with a lint–free cloth.

This takes nice pictures, I offered glibly.

The others in the car were much too polite to do anything but smile and nod as they continued discussing the latest high–power 900 mm telephoto lenses capable of zooming in on a condor’s beak from a distance of 17 miles. Control chromatic aberrations and a 53–pound lens the size of a stretch limo that comes with its own Sherpa and on–call chiropractor were among other topics touched upon.

Soon we were turning onto the dirt road leading to Lytle Ranch, craning our necks every which way in search of something even faintly avian.

It was a something perched in a Joshua tree, gray feathers all fluffed up in the frigid sunshine, a grapefruit–sized lint ball with a beak. We screeched to a dusty stop and out came the cameras. The consensus was loggerhead shrike. A half mile or so further and we saw another, and then another, and another.

Nearing the ranch we spotted a raggedly–crested phainopepla perched overhead on a swaying utility wire. I had seen these birds in southern Arizona but never before in southern Utah and didn’t know they are common here.

We parked the cars and listened as the trip leader pointed out places we might go to view birds. I wandered in the direction of a small pond about a half mile away, dreaming of thousands of ducks that would be there paddling around in the water, cheerfully waiting for me to show up with my nifty 20X zoom point–and–shoot.

Walking down the path I watched as a great blue heron took wing and soared away over the leafless trees. Gone before I could rip off a glove and compose a shot (dang birds never sit still), I walked on towards an old orchard where birds have been known to feed on what is left of last year’s pomegranates. Here, white–crowned sparrows flitted among the spindly branches and rustled about in the crackly leaves but none were seen snacking on old fruit dangling from trees.

Not seeing any other birdlife of much interest in the orchard, I pondered for a time a line of tawny cliffs on the other side of a dry, wide wash. I thought it might be part of the regional ash flow sheets that occurred around 22 million years ago but that is about as far as I got in the identification.

I arrived at the pond just in time to scatter some green–winged teal off the marshy water’s edge. Was their departure due to my scarf + ear bags + hat arrangement that was doing a bang–up job of keeping my head warm? In tight formation seven small ducks lifted up and swooped away beyond the scrubby hillsides. I figured they would return so I parked myself at a perch in low shrubs alongside the pond, leaning against a thin tree, as much out of the wind as I could manage. I stood there in the freezing wind chill for a full 20 minutes waiting for the teals return while considering how much I did not care to test the strength of a questionably intact structure extending into the water.

Eventually a small flock of shimmering light careened gracefully out of the sky and landed on the far side of the pond. My poor little 20X zoom lens and 10X binoculars did the best they could.

On the drive out everyone was hoping for one last sighting of anything, but I was the one who identified it first. Silhouetted against a cloudless sapphire sky, a familiar shape sat upright on a dark green Joshua tree branch shifting and swaying with the wind. Someone said golden eagle, but I knew better.

What the heck are Joshua hawks? No one had ever heard of them.

Right! Of course!

We bounced together back down the dusty dirt road and soon turned onto the paved highway. I smilingly patted my camera and binoculars. We get along pretty well together, after all.