I was so eager to be out in the fresh air and good light that I headed out unshowered, teeth unbrushed and my hair still in the messy bun that I slept in. It was so early and I was headed for a small, local trail so I figured my odds were low of encountering anyone else who might notice or object to my lack of grooming or slightly unkempt appearance. I brought a wide-angle lens, anticipating that I would do some intentional camera movement landscape photography on the trail and at the end of the hike, on the Tomales Bay. It is a trail that I love, filled with huge old California Bay Laurel trees, Bishop Pines, and a variety of understory: coffeeberry, toyon, chinquapin and huckleberry. Sword and Bracken ferns crowd the trail in places and dried Bay leaves cover the forest floor and the trail, slippery and fragrant. The trail is relatively sheltered from the wind, even the windy days, but the wind in the pines is often the loudest noise on this trail. The next loudest sound is typically the bird song. But on this particular morning with no wind at all, the bird song was jubilant and dominant.

I stopped to do some landscape photography of charismatic, mossy tree limbs along the way, and as I was paused, photographing a grove of trees with lichen hanging down from the branches like Christmas ornaments and tinsel, I heard a sound. It was a call that was familiar. My gut, my intuition immediately identified it as a specific species, but that was an uncommon bird that I had never seen in this part of the forest, never heard before on this trail. Immediately the rational part of my brain started doubting the identification that had surfaced (even though it is a species that we have here). How often do we do that - second guess ourselves when reading a wild landscape? Our rational mind interrogating the “knowledge” of our intuition, of our animal senses, especially when our gut read feels improbable or unexpected. A surprise shape in the trees or call in the woods. I am reminded of an adage I heard from someone who went to medical school in the U.S. – when you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras. It should be the common thing, not the rare one. That’s what my mind tells me.

I decided to pull out the Merlin app and use Sound ID to see if I was correct when I heard the whistling call again. As soon as I heard the call, I started the Merlin recording. A dozen species popped up on my list of birds in the area and for a brief instant a related, similar species flickered onto my screen but then disappeared. Merlin wasn’t confident in the ID. No answer yet, I stopped recording and continued walking. Then I heard the call again. This time it sounded much closer, and I began scanning the trees to my left and right, overhead and behind me. I still could not locate the bird making this call. At this point I was determined to locate the bird with my eyes. I continued walking slowly, each footstep intentionally and silently placed while scanning. And then I noticed a huge area of whitewash1 by the trail. A sign that an owl or other large bird had been hanging out on the branches overhead. I looked up. And saw a pair of glassy black marble eyes staring down at me. As I continued to scan the branches of this same tree, I found another pair of eyes, and then a third pair of eyes.

To my disbelief, staring down at me was a Northern spotted owl family, a mother and two juveniles. She looked at me briefly and then went back to a million-mile stare off into the forest to the West, simultaneously resting and attuned to any sign of something to hunt. The owlets peered down at me, but after a moment or two, they closed their eyes and went back to dozing. With only my wide-angle lens with me, I decided to quickly go back home and get my larger camera kit so I could take photos with a longer lens. I literally ran home (and it’s a steep climb back to my house), swapped out the cameras in my bag, and went back to the owl family, fingers crossed that they would still be in the same spot. The babies looked young, fluffy with few flight feathers yet, so the odds of them going very far were low, but still there was a chance they would disappear into the forest before I got back to them. They are hard to find and rarely in places that are easy to photograph.

As I approached the area where the owls had been, I scanned the ground looking for the whitewash mark on the trail to tell me I had arrived, afraid in my haste I would go right past them. That’s when I noticed an owl pellet. It was relatively fresh, but dried, so not from that same day. Which meant that they had been in this location before, or for a day or more. I was lucky. None of them had moved. Mama owl continued her restful dozing as the juveniles stretched and preened. One of them was harassed by a pesky fly and then a bee that actually landed on his stomach feathers. With their curious head bobs and gleaming black eyes, it was such a treat to watch them.

Not wanting to disturb them, I kept my second visit short, headed home and showered, ready to go to the Pacific. As I got ready, I started reflecting once again on the gifts of paying attention. Walking amongst ancient trees, not distracted, but paying close attention. The forest is full of gifts if we look for them. If we are open to them. What started out as a chance to get a little morning exercise and do some abstract photography turned into one of the best spotted owl experiences I’ve had in years. And if I hadn’t been listening and looking as carefully as I was, I might’ve missed it altogether. If the wind had been even slightly louder, I might not have heard the initial faint call of the owlet. Maybe the whitewash would have been enough of a clue for me to look up and see them, even not hearing them. But the joy, the adventure of hearing the call and then looking carefully, that pleasure wouldn’t have been quite the same. Starting from sound instead of sight increased my sense of wonder and awe in the experience, the anticipation of a rare encounter. The whole experience felt like such a gift from the universe.

Seeing this family along the local trail made me think about some local conservation issues that potentially impact these beautiful owls. Marin County has long been a stronghold of Northern spotted owls, which is an endangered species. These owls are specialists preferring old growth trees, with a diet of dusky-footed wood rats. Habitat loss and fragmentation, as well as climate change and competition from barred owls, has imperiled the population. As a result, there are controversial campaigns to kill barred owls, which, although not native to the area, have come on their own wings to Marin County. In the Pacific Northwest they kill the barred owls that are found in spotted owl nesting territories.2 Barred owls are a similar species, but generalists as far as diet and generally outcompete spotted owls. Spotted owl nesting activity has been documented to be preserved when barred owls are removed and lost when the barred owls stay and themselves nest in the same area. But I struggle with the idea that the way to save a species is a campaign to destroy a competitor who traveled on their own wings or paws. It feels different than the non-native species brought into areas by humans.3 There is a recent plan to kill the barred owls in Marin County as they have done in the Pacific Northwest, to protect the spotted owls. And in this essay, I’m not advocating for or against that approach. I can see arguments on both sides but it strikes me as raising a core conservation issue which isn’t limited to spotted owls: what do we do when it appears the only way we can preserve a species and prevent it from going extinct is to have an endless campaign to kill another species?

The problem with lethal removal is that in many situations, it doesn’t solve the problem in the long-term. It’s a temporary fix. Because if a habitat is suitable and an animal is under pressure or needs to disperse, then open territory or habitat that they could occupy will always be attractive, whether you’re an owl or a coyote. If you kill a barred owl today, six months or a year from now a different barred owl might look at the same place and think it looks great and move in. It’s the same problem we have when people suggest lethal removal of coyotes from urban areas. It just doesn’t work from a scientific perspective (putting aside, again, the ethical issues). Dispersing coyotes will immediately come in and fill the void if an area has the things they need to survive, which is most importantly a food source. This is why the most effective way to reduce coyotes in urban and suburban areas is to eliminate the food sources for them there, like unsecured garbage and compost piles, pet food left outside, and fallen fruit. Removing attractants like a food source or a nesting location in old-growth trees isn’t an option for keeping barred owls out of spotted owl territories. The things that make the habitat attractive to spotted owls also makes the area appealing to barred owls. Can barred owls be encouraged to go back to their traditional areas by improving habitat there?

I struggle a bit with the word invasive or non-native when wildlife comes on their own into a new place. We have changed our planet and her ecosystems so dramatically, with development and climate change. It is no surprise that places that used to be desirable homes for wildlife are now either unsustainable, undesirable or completely unavailable.

A more localized project in the Tomales Bay State Park to use chainsaws and masticators to remove trees, to destroy and remove snags also includes the potential use of herbicides, including glyphosate. It may be more labor-intensive, or more costly, but there must be other, better ways to deal with invasive plants in our forest than putting poison in our habitat for these beautiful spotted owls, and in our water.

I am generally skeptical of human interventions, especially adding new species or the application of chemicals. Even when the intentions are 100% environmentally motivated, there is SO much we don’t know, that we don’t understand about our environment and other species. There is a certain degree of hubris in thinking we know what’s best, when we do not fully comprehend what is happening in an ecosystem - the fungi, the plants, the wildlife, the water or the soil. It is all so complicated and, in many ways, unknown to us. Scientists are discovering things all the time about how other species communicate, about their umwelt. Actions that theoretically are designed for wildfire prevention or forest health could have negative impacts for species in the area. Not because we are intentionally choosing to do harm, but because we don’t know or understand the full extent of the impact of our actions.

These plans raise so many questions for me. Is a lethal campaign against barred owls a way to assuage our guilt about creating a world inhospitable to spotted owls? Are there any other alternatives to lethal removal of barred owls? Are there ways to create and protect spotted owl habitat? Are there ways to make the area less appealing or interesting to the barred owl? What does it mean to have created a world inhospitable to a particular species? Can we reverse course? Do we have to resign ourselves to spotted owls only existing in captivity or “Reserves” that are managed? Will we reach a point where they are extinct in the wild?

I don’t know what the answer is, but I know that I don’t want to live in a world without spotted owls. A forest devoid of their calls would lose a bit of its magic.

Share Tales from a Wild Life by Sarah Killingsworth

You are tired, but beside you three small, soft, furry babies start wiggling as they wake up. The largest and liveliest of the three quickly climbs over his siblings and pushes up against your spotted stomach, eagerly seeking breakfast. Rubbing his head against your body, he settles in to nurse, laying against you. His two sisters, roused by his wiggling, start to move towards your stomach as well. Walking like drunken sailors on wobbly legs, they make plaintive mews as they come towards you. They quickly find a spot to nurse and all three kittens nestle in the safe embrace of your limbs. You fall back asleep nursing all three of them as the sun rises, warming the soil and drying the grass.

An hour later, your own stomach rumbles with hunger and you stand up. The kittens complain about the interruption of their snuggling. Breakfast is over. With a growl you tell your three babies to stay in the brush, safely hidden from threats like coyotes and deer. The kittens scurry further back into the bushes and begin wrestling and pouncing on solitary blades of grass. Sitting up with a large yawn and a long, languid stretch of your front legs and then your back legs, you step out from under the cover of the bushes and into the spindly forest of grass. Looking across the fields and the hillsides, you listen and scan for signs of something to eat. Your ears flick and rotate, hearing quail, ravens and redwing blackbirds. The grass tips brush your shoulders and face as you step forward. A gopher or vole would be the easiest catch this morning, but a snake, lizard or bird would make a fine breakfast as well if one presented itself.

You begin to walk slowly into the tall grass, quickly disappearing. Water soaks your paws and sharp foxtails catch on your coat. You stop with irritation to flick water off your front paw and then use your back foot to scratch at a tick that has lodged itself on your temple. Annoying. Eventually it will fall off but these small parasites are distracting, and you wish they would stop hitchhiking a ride latched onto your flesh. The empty rumble in your stomach is more persistent, as you haven’t had much to eat the last two days. Hunting was difficult yesterday in high winds, and coyotes came and interrupted your hunt last evening. The wind was blowing their scent away from you, so you didn’t smell them as early as you typically could. Instead, you saw them when they were just 100 yards away – frighteningly close. Your heart thumping, you sprinted into the bushes, crouched low to the ground and tried to make yourself invisible. You watched them with their noses fixated on the earth, following your scent trail and coming ever closer to your hiding place. As they approached the bushes where you hid, one of their family members howled in the distance and they turned to move towards the call, answering with their own wistful song. A wave of relief washed over your body before you realized they had moved in the direction of the kittens, and you pushed your way through thick brush to find a hidden way back to check on your babies. At just three months old, they are quite vulnerable. Thankfully, you found them safely dozing in a pile. Coyotes have been known to chase you and steal your prey in the past. You decided it wasn’t worth the risk to attempt another hunt last night and laid down beside your babies.

Between nursing the kittens and bringing prey back to them, there has been little for you to eat yourself. Yesterday morning you wolfed down one gopher, but that’s all you’ve had to sustain you. Hunting in tall grass and high winds is hard work; the resistance drains your body of energy. And it is harder to maintain your focus on hunting while also being alert for dangers and threats in challenging conditions.

Walking further into the field to find breakfast, the fur on your back absorbs and reflects the heat of the intense summer sun. A redtail hawk circles overhead, soaring on the updrafts of wind. Unlike you, they seem to savor the thrill of high winds. White-crowned sparrows call out an exuberant melody from the barbed wire fenceline. Your head swivels as you hear a gopher tugging at the roots of a clump of grass 20 yards to your right. Your quickly trot in the direction of the sound, eager to get a meal. When you get close to the gopher hole, you lower your body to the ground and slink forward, slowly, muscles taut. And when you are quite close to the hole, you flatten down to the ground completely, ears plastered against the side of your head and eyes fixated on the opening in the dirt. You can feel vibrations in the soil in your stomach muscles as the gopher moves in the underground tunnel. Time passes. Thirty minutes later, and still, you lie motionless, waiting. Just then, you hear a scraping and know that the gopher is moving towards the surface. You have just a fraction of a second to propel yourself forward and grab the gopher by the back of the neck with your jaws. Muscles twitching, you leap, nose into the hole, but end up with a face covered in dirt and no gopher. Shaking off the failure, you begin to walk away slowly, listening and scanning for another opportunity. Given your petite size, you are also always on the alert for danger.

As you continue onwards, there is little sign of any potential prey. Hoping to get a better vantage point, you jump up onto the top of a wooden fence post. Taking a quick look around, you notice a flock of quail in the bushes a short distance away. Quickly jumping down, you creep silently towards the coyote brush. The quail are chittering and cooing and don’t seem to have noticed your presence. So once again, you flatten down soundlessly and wait. And wait. The quail move around on the ground while one male stays at the top of the bush, a sentry. Luckily, he hasn’t spotted you. Eventually, one of the quail moves around the base of the bush and wanders in front of you. Boom! You leap, propelled by strong back legs and this time, you are successful. The rest of the flock lifts from the ground in a thunderous cacophony of wings and flies away. A bird in your mouth, you trot back towards the kittens. Hunger stops you, however, and you sit down to eat the quail. It takes mere seconds to rip it apart and consume it.

Your hunger abated, muscles tired from the two hunts, you know you need to hunt again, this time for your kittens. As they grow, they need to consume more prey items, and eventually you will bring them along on hunts, teaching them to get food for themselves. But not today. Walking further away from them, you continue looking and listening for anything they could eat. You have been gone for more than four hours now. You wonder if they are asleep, or playing, and hope that they have stayed safely hidden.

You cross a gravel road, hoping to have better luck in the next field. The ground is still wet and muddy in a ditch next to the road, and you hear something in the grass. Crouching on the surface of the road, you wait, and then, certain that there’s a gopher in the hole, you once again flatten your whole body to the ground, muscles tensed and ready to spring forward. The road reflects the sun’s heat and you begin to pant, mouth slightly open, waiting. Suddenly, you hear the rumble and roar of an engine. You jump off the road into the field and try to hide behind a large clump of grass as a pick-up truck thunders by, spewing dirt and dust as it speeds past you. Pulse racing and filled with adrenaline, you decide to walk away from this gopher hole and try to find one in a less dangerous location. If you’re hit by a car and injured or killed, your kittens will starve and die too.

Continuing down a path between the grasses, you scrutinize the landscape, looking for something to bring back to your babies. Ears erects, swiveling, listening for the sound of anything moving through the brush, or chewing on the clumps of grass. Gophers are surprisingly loud when they munch on greenery at the opening of their holes. A-ha! You hear a crunching sound and race towards it. A gopher having lunch, so busy eating clumps of velvet grass that it doesn’t notice you approaching. Their eyesight is poor, and this one’s other senses seem to be consumed by the herbaceous feast in front of it. Flatted to the ground yet again, you wait for the perfect moment to strike. You need to make this hunt successful, so you can feed the kittens and get some rest. Moments pass, sparrows call from the cattails nearby, and your fur heats quickly in the midday sun. Finally, the gopher begins to emerge from the hole, and you leap forward. Grabbing the gopher by the neck, it wriggles and tries to free itself, but you clamp down tightly and quickly run back to the bushes where you left the kittens.

As you approach the large coyote brush where the kittens had been playing, there is no sign of them. You pace back and forth in front of the bush, hoping they will see or smell you. Still holding the gopher in your teeth, you call out to them from the corners of your mouth, telling them to come to you. Nothing. Where have they gone? You move quickly, anxiously pacing along the edge of the brush, calling out while still clenching the meal in your jaws. They must have woken up and and moved. But where? As you approach a strand of willows, you hear movement in the branches and look up to see one kitten snoozing in a tree, while the two others are swatting at each other’s tails at the base. You call again, and this time all three of them run towards you, stumbling over each other trying to be the first to get to you. The largest kitten gets to you first and grabs the gopher as you drop it to the ground. The other two kittens start to chase him, hoping to get some of the food. A tug-of-war ensues, and two kittens end up with parts of the gopher.

The kitten who doesn’t have any food comes running towards you, rubbing her face up against your body and chin. You rub your head against hers, savoring the sweet nuzzling. Noticing her forehead has bits of lichen on it from the willow, you begin grooming her. First cleaning her face, then her body. The other two kittens, satiated, come running over as well, so you clean the tops of their heads and then their backs. Simultaneously, all three kittens take turns licking your head and stomach.

You check each of them for ticks, woody debris and dirt in their fur, then sink down next to them for some well-deserved rest, and they eagerly climb onto your side and flop down beside you to nurse.

After an hour and a half of sleep, you will get up and go back out to do it all again.

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Naming an animal, particularly giving him/her a name that implies being cute or friendly, can create the idea or impression that he/she is like a pet, domesticated. Naming conveys a sense of ownership, as it does with our pets. To name something is to claim it, to exert power over something or someone, from the colonial era to the present, e.g. “New England” or “The Gulf of America.”

In recent months, I have seen firsthand the damage that naming specific bobcats has done. It created an environment where people treat a wilderness area like a zoo. With no regard to the other people who might be in the shared space, and particularly no regard for the well-being of the wildlife.

Creating the impression that wildlife is friendly harms the animals, as people become willing to approach wildlife in a way that is disruptive to their natural behavior. Large groups interrupt their courting during mating season, or when they’re hunting for food for themselves and their young.

Giving wildlife a cute, friendly name also creates the idea that anybody can walk up or join someone who might be observing or photographing a particular animal. And this too is problematic. Someone may have spent a long time sitting at a reasonable distance, watching an animal as it moved about in natural behavior. And every person added to that scene, adds stress for the animal. Even if the animal doesn’t run away. Crowds of six or ten or even more people surround an animal that is simply trying to survive. That human presence is an interference, even if signs of stress are difficult to see.1 Eventually, what I observe time and again, is that the presence of additional humans does cause the animal to run away or retreat to the brush to hide.

Naming local wildlife might seem harmless, but the impulse to do so could be motivated by things that benefit the “namer”. Giving an animal a name is something often done by locals and can itself be a way of communicating power and status as an insider, as somebody who’s knowledgeable. Like providing locations for wild animals, which establishes the location-giver as someone who holds information and therefore power in the wildlife photography community. It is to the detriment of the animals but benefits the person sharing the information. Knowing the name creates an “insider” feeling. So the name spreads as people want to be demonstrate that they are “in the know” by telling people the name. We are a social species, hardwired to want to belong.

Naming a wild animal also potentially creates the illusion of having a relationship with him or her. The idea that a wild animal “likes” you is a seductive one. And while I am confident that certain animals know me by my scent and have decided that I am personally not a threat to them, I do not believe for a moment that they like me, love me or are in any way attached to me. They’ve simply chosen to see me as something that they can dismiss as a threat.2

Researchers strive not to use names when studying wildlife. In many studies, biologists use numbers for animals to identify them: Wolves in Yellowstone, Mountain lions in Sonoma County and in other parts of California, all have numbers. Tagging, banding and collaring also provide ways to identify individual animals without giving them a name.

Much of the harm we have done to our planet stems from the notion of taming the wild, of ownership, from our willingness to objectify and extract. Naming wildlife creates the idea that it is somehow ours. To do with what we like. To brag. It breeds a sense of familiarity as well as entitlement and the greatest gift we can give wildlife is the ability to be wild, to have space to safely engage in their natural behaviors. And invite them to do so. We make wild lives hard enough with roads slicing through territories, lethal rodenticides, ever-encroaching development reducing available habitat, the list goes on and on.

On the flip side, in conservation, it can be useful from a fundraising or educational standpoint to create attachment in the public to a wild animal. Whether in Africa or in your local zoo. Captive animals are typically named to help create a connection with the viewer/audience. Can we build the same kind of connection and empathy without giving a captive animal a name?

I think the scientific approach has had its drawbacks, too, in terms of objectifying wildlife, and being so overly focused on avoiding anthropomorphizing other species that scientists have resisted acknowledging the consciousness and the emotional reality of wild lives.

To preserve scientific objectivity, and perhaps, because it makes it easier to objectify and extract, we are beginning to understand how far we underestimated the lived experience and capabilities of other species. But naming predators can create the illusion that they are docile, approachable, and somehow less than wild, like giving a grizzly bear a name like Strawberry. And the narrative on predators is unfairly negative, generally speaking, and the fear-mongering in public discourse around bears, mountain lions, wolves and even coyotes and bobcats is constant. It is frustrating for those of us to believe that these are simply wild animals trying to survive, who by and large are no threat to humans. I want us to collectively have empathy for these magnificent predators. And at the same time, creating the impression that these species are “friendly” or in some way tame enough to approach, is also a harm. That sentiment can lead to feeding wildlife, which increases human-wildlife conflict and ultimately results in wild lives being euthanized. In advocating for coexistence, talking about predators with both with empathy and respect for their truly wild nature is at times like threading a needle.

I believe strongly in paying close attention to individuals. There is so much to be gained from seeing and appreciating their unique individuality and also embracing the idea that certain aspects of life on this planet are universal. But sitting with a particular wild animal, whether a bobcat or a bear or a wolf, the feeling I have at my core, is that they are not in any way mine to name or claim. They are kin. Sentient beings struggling to survive every day in a world where humans have made survival difficult. I can recognize their unique temperament, their lived experience, and empathize and respect their wild life, without reducing it to a name.

Some further reading, if this topic interests you:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4552209/

https://medium.com/@graham.wallington/the-ethics-of-naming-wild-animals-f8242852e6c5

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pan3.10503

The extremes are so close together here. Dry, dusty roads become mud-soaked, a patchwork of gluey puddles in mere hours. And then they dry out again. Hot sun disappears into black clouds which give way to torrential rains. Herds of thousands of animals are contrasted with empty grasslands just a kilometer away. Bracing wind chases out storms followed by stifling midday heat with no breeze at all. When the wind dies down, flies and mosquitos appear in swarms, then with increasing sunlight or wind, disappear again.

Sound travels amazingly well in this landscape. The Serengeti is an immersion in auditory amazement. A chorus of birds and insects and frogs in the morning. The lions’ roar, the elephants rumbling and chatting. The hippopotamus snorting and the zebras’ barking alarm calls fill the evening air. And the hyenas’ haunting cooing that almost sounds like a dove in the forest. The matriarchal hyenas are the true rulers of the plains.

Then there is the smell of the grass and herbaceous plants, a mixture of mint and sage wafting from the brush as the jeep pushes against branches and stems moving through the landscape. We keep our arms inside the jeep to avoid touching the long, white thorns of the acacia, sharp as needles. We stop to feel the soft leaves of the velvet leaf. While we are stopped, we catch wafts of the acrid smell of urine, and the earthy, clean scent of wet rocks and mud.

Lightning cracks in the distance, briefly illuminating a small section of the aubergine clouds followed by a deep rumble echoing across the plains. Raindrops fall gently at first and then with increasing intensity. Rivulets flowing through the dirt. Our driver has already put the green canvas top over our open-air jeep but with insistent large raindrops blowing sideways in the wind, we stop to zip the canvas coverings down over the sides.

Our jeep moves forward through the mud, windshield lowered for better visibility for our driver, as drops of moisture and seeds fly off the tall grasses into my lap.

In the distance we see a pride of lions slowly working their way through swampy terrain, jumping mud puddles as they head to a charcoal rock on the horizon, their destination on the Kenya border.

The large black rock jutting out of the savannah holds remnants of yesterday‘s sun and will warm even further when today’s clouds clear. With waterproof and fleece-lined ponchos, we are warm and dry in our covered jeep, but the lions are damp, with muddy paws and wet bellies. They are seeking warmth on this unforgiving, waterlogged land.

We watch as two adult male lions climb the rock, an area recently vacated by a herd of elephants. One elephant lagged behind and had a long, slow staring contest with a male lion before moving on to follow the rest of the herd.

Adult female lions climb the rock, then sub adults, and two tiny cubs form the clumsy, gregarious caboose on this lion train. Within minutes the dark rock is speckled with bodies of golden fur, drawn to the top of this rock like moths to a flame. The cubs wrestle and play, chasing each other’s tails and chewing on each other‘s ears as the adults lounge, stretch and groom, occasionally lifting their heads and bodies to shift positions.

The storm passes and the sun begins to beat down with an immediate intensity felt only near the equator. In the span of just a few hours, the heat from the rock goes from being a welcome respite from the cold wind and rain to being too hot to sit on. And the lions, panting to release excess body heat, move down to a tree at the base of the rocks, seeking shade to cool themselves.

I shake my head while taking photographs, so that my hair can flick away the flies on my cheekbone. Just like the lions, flicking their tails and the zebras, nodding their heads. The annoyance of the flies is universal.

I struggle to enjoy what could be described as typical “vacations”. I get bored and restless sitting for more than a day at the beach, though beachcombing is a favorite activity. And I can’t do poolside lounging at all. But I excel at expedition-style travel. Where endless curiosity, a sense of adventure and an open heart lead to moments that not only rejuvenate but change me.

Visiting the Serengeti has its challenges. Multiple days of travel are required to get there, so the expense, and the fossil fuel consumption, is high. And yet, there is no doubt that ecotourism provides benefits, both in economic opportunities for the local communities, as well as to the wildlife species. The presence of wildlife-viewing tourists can provide incentives to protect animals that might otherwise be killed. But with tourism also comes complicated factors like overcrowding, infrastructure that potentially impacts habitat, and the pressure/disruption to wildlife of human behavior- things like too many jeeps on a particular sighting. And caring, well-intentioned local guides are at times pressured by wealthy clients to behave in ways that interfere with wildlife and their desired movements. In that way, it is no different than Yellowstone - easy to end up in a place where you see people behaving badly. To the detriment of themselves, other humans, and wildlife.

In a country like Tanzania with such high poverty, privileged tourists have a lot of power, which creates a potential for safari excursions where we objectify animals, and are extractive in our experience. The disparity in wealth and the modern-day power dynamics have ties to colonialism and are quite complicated. This topic is too important to ignore in this essay but too big to explore fully here. I will dive deeper in another piece. Being mindful of the history of East Africa, we can share with our local guides that we don’t want to interfere with behavior and never want to chase or disturb an animal. We can ground our visits in curiosity, empathy and respect for these wild lives.

So many of the harms to our planet and threatened ecosystems feel out of my control and overwhelming. My approach to time in the wild is one thing within my control. When I travel, I share with my local partners that my priority at any sighting is the well-being of the animals who are working so hard to survive. In East Africa, the line between life and death feels so thin. The electric combination of strength and speed and fragility. Every species is struggling to protect their young. To survive another day. To find food. The Serengeti is as raw and wild a place as I have ever been.

As a photographer myself, and as a photography guide, I fully understand the desire to “get the shot” and feel the pressure for my clients to get good photos, but I don’t want our presence or actions to interrupt a hunt, change the animal’s course of movement or worse yet, cause it to flee. Wild lives are focused on survival, and for me an animal’s well-being is paramount. That occasionally means missing an opportunity I can visualize if we only shifted our position, to change the angle or get closer. But moving the jeep has an impact on the wildlife we are watching. As a photography guide, I try to explain my reasoning anytime I have our jeep sit back or decide not to follow an animal and let it go. I admire how hard these animals work to survive and talk about my gratitude for the privilege of sharing space with them.

Visiting less crowded areas is always my preference and then giving wildlife space to do what it wants to do. That means stopping the jeep when we are still at a distance to observe what is happening in any situation. The best local guides will always do this on their own. Often, there are other animals which you cannot see, laying in the grass, resting in the brush, or hiding amongst rocks. Pausing and scanning for a few minutes provides an opportunity to see the situation more fully and make educated decisions about where to position the vehicle to maximize the viewing and photographic opportunities while not interfering with the narrative that’s unfolding. I have seen other jeeps aggressively driving into the middle of something or pursuing animals. It breaks my heart. And as a visitor, I am always mindful about how much pressure we put on our local guide to make us “happy.” In my experience, the universe returns the energy that you put out. Operating from a space of love and respect creates opportunities for wildlife behavior and interactions that a more aggressive approach would impede.

We had the privilege of watching 2-month old lion cubs nurse, cheetah cubs wrestle, and a cheetah mama take down a gazelle and feed her cub. These moments are not just checking a species off on a list or capturing a photo but being fully present in a moment that changes you – filling you with awe and gratitude. Being alive, being here, is so clearly a gift.

Some experiences in life hit your heart sharply, with such stunning acuity that words seem vastly inadequate to convey the emotional depth and complexity of the experience. That is true for me for moments of deep grief and moments of intense joy, like the death of a parent or the birth of a child. And it is true of the beauty of East Africa. It carves into your soul. Simultaneously piercing and expanding your consciousness.

Perhaps it is because from horizon to horizon as far as the eye can see are grasslands punctuated with Acacia trees or, in the East, with rocky outcroppings called kopjes. And thousands upon thousands of animals. The vastness is at once inspiring and humbling. It is beautiful, in a way that makes me feel simultaneously small and at the same time part of something so grandiose it doesn’t seem real.

Have you ever been someplace that changed you, or changed the way you see the world? I would love to hear about it in the comments.

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I am terrible at purging and getting rid of stuff. I find myself looking at things and thinking of a future moment where they could be useful or reminiscing about a past trip or party that I wore them to. And I don’t want to let go of the item. Maybe because I don’t want to let go of the part of myself that it represents in my mind. On an intellectual level, I know that it is “just stuff.” But for me, the process of shedding unneeded items is emotionally draining. In trying to decide what to keep and what to give away or donate, there are so many thoughts about each item. Will I ever wear it again? Is it still remotely in fashion? If giving it away feels wasteful, complicit in the consumerism that plagues modern life, then what does it mean if I hold onto it and never wear it again? Uncluttered spaces are better for my mental health. The emotional tie I feel to these items seems so odd to me, a puzzle given my lack of interest in status-symbol items and conspicuous consumption. A scarcity mindset in the lack of scarcity.

It often takes the passage of time -and by that I mean, decades, not just a few years - before I can let go of things. And even then, it’s hard. Sometimes I feel ashamed of the clutter in my closets, of my reluctance to even try to eliminate items, a persistent desire to hold onto these bits of fabric, wishing that I was less emotionally connected to dresses and jackets. Acquiring so much stuff, then being unable to let go of it, feels like a moral failing. And I am not someone who is interested in the latest fashion, the “must have” purse or shoes of the season. I don’t frequently buy clothes. Most of my purchases in recent years were utilitarian clothes to wear in the field, purchased on Ebay if I can find it there. But all of the emotions I felt while staring at piles on the bed and purging got me wondering: Why do we hold onto things at all? Since we, too, are animals, I started thinking about the relationship between other species and objects, curious about the connections and possible motivations.

At the most basic level, objects can serve a purpose, whether used as tools or sustenance, to provide camouflage or protection, or to attract a mate. But objects can also be decorative, part of a desire to make our bodies and homes not just safe, but beautiful. Fashion and home design are creative endeavors, though they have origins in protecting our bodies from the elements, and predators. The impulse to beautify is as ancient as cave paintings, shell jewelry and beaded or embroidered clothing.

Gimme Shelter

Animals collect objects for camouflage, to provide safety for themselves physically. Caddis fly larvae cover themselves with leaves and tiny twigs that they bind together with silk to make a protective shell. Decorator crabs cover themselves with objects from the ocean’s floor to hide in the aquatic landscape. On land, elk thrash their antlers in brush, often emerging from this shadowboxing with branches and grasses dangling like tinsel in a display of dominance to intimidate rivals and hopefully also attract mates.

Other animals use objects to build nests or dens – gathering sticks, string, fur, feathers, pebbles, or plant materials to create a haven for their babies. Building a nest is utilitarian, important for survival. But some species decorate the nest, moving beyond purely functional items – male Bowerbirds collect colorful objects which they place around the nest to attract a mate. Western snowy plovers will decorate their nests with white pebbles, which in addition to being beautiful, might reflect heat, or be attractive to a mate. Similarly, the giant Pacific octopus creates an “octopus garden” of shells decorating the entrance to their den, maybe providing added protection, or simply discarding the remnants of prey (and also inspiring the famous Beatles’ song).1

Building a nest takes a lot of energy, so it would make sense to reuse a nest when possible. As one would expect, a nest that is successful one year is more likely to be reused. Great horned owls don’t build their own nests but take over nests built by other species – often Red-tailed hawk nests. These large stick nests can be quite durable, lasting years with some repairs each season. Why would a bird not return to a nest? Most commonly because a predator is in the vicinity, or due to nest failure the prior year. In a previously used nest, lice, mites, bacteria can also be present and a threat to chick survival.

Tools and Toys

We use objects for more than camouflage and shelter, however. A tool is defined as “a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function.” You don’t need a hand, or even a thumb, to use tools, though, as orcas have proven. “Allokelping” is a recently discovered phenomenon where an orca bites off a piece of kelp and uses it to rub the skin of another orca, for itching or shedding skin.

Sea otters store a favorite rock in a pouch under their front leg, used to break open clams and other shellfish. Elephants use rocks and logs to flatten fences so they can walk across. Sometimes, a tool might be immediately used and then discarded. But occasionally, like a sea otter’s rock, something is carried along an animal’s journey. In the wild, the question is whether the additional energy required to carry something is outweighed by the usefulness of having it. That’s a good question for us, too.

Just as other species use tools, play is not solely a human pursuit. Some animals also appear to interact with objects purely for joy or fun – using them as toys or simply collecting shiny objects. Wild canines are particularly curious and exuberant, I have seen gray fox kits play with feathers, coyote pups play with skulls, and coastal wolf pups play with shells on a beach. One way to find a wolf den is to look for the pile of “toys” outside the entrance. Wolves in Yellowstone carried an orange traffic cone away from the roadside out into the field. In our backyard, the local gray foxes delivered a neighbor’s shoe, delighted in racing around in front of my trail cameras with a rubber glove, and one summer deposited no fewer than 5 different colored rubber balls next to our house. I still have no idea where those balls came from, but the foxes placed them in a pile over a matter of weeks. And then, a year or so later, they all disappeared.

Hoarding

Lastly, and critical for survival, many species stockpile food. Hoarding implies an ability to think about a time in the future when food will not be readily available. Or at least an instinct to gather as much as you can when it’s available because you never know when it might not be available again. Acorn woodpeckers store food in granaries, depositing hundreds of acorns in holes in a single tree or telephone pole. Scrub Jays and squirrels stash food for winter, requiring the ability to recall where to look for that food later. Moles eat earthworms and in preparation for winter, will decapitate hundreds of worms (immobilizing but not killing them) to hold onto them in a larder. If they aren’t eaten, eventually the worms will grow new heads and move on. Many predators cache prey, storing it for days, weeks or even months later. Snow and ice extend the preservation of carcasses. River otters cache bird carcasses under rocks under water. Mountain lions and bobcats will hide a carcass under brush, using their paws to scrape and move grasses and branches over the prey.

I am acutely aware in this rumination on the relationship between other species and objects that I do not know, and cannot know, what it would be like to experience the world as another being. I can observe behavior, read books and articles and have theories about what is happening for another animal, but to only describe other species’ behaviors and abilities in comparison to a human’s would be to diminish every other species. The fact that I cannot know what it is like to be a Western snowy plover decorating a nest is part of the addictive magic of wildlife observation, of wanting to understand their world. I wish I could experience their umwelt. I see many similarities between species and at the same time I delight in trying to understand the nuances of our differences, too.

Back to my home

All of this makes me wonder about the level of conscious thought versus instinct that’s involved in humans accumulating and holding onto food and other objects. Thousands of years ago, we needed to save food in preparation for a lean winter ahead. Animals hoarding acorns or worms is much like humans drying, smoking, salting or canning foods when we lived in communities that didn’t have grocery stores. Nomadic lifestyle made holding onto clunky items for multiple years difficult.

Our desire to keep or store objects has its origin in survival. We, like other species, use objects to protect ourselves, to have a safe place to raise our young, as well as for tools to obtain food, and to attract mates. But we have long since passed the days as humans where we gather the materials and build our own dwellings to keep ourselves and our babies safe. Is my seasonal desire to clean up my “nest” driven by some ancient biological drive/instinct to prepare a home as we head into baby season?

In a modern world, we can amass far more objects than we need for tools, shelter or camouflage, or to play, or to attract a mate (but perhaps this last category is endless?!).

Even utilitarian objects can certainly bring pure joy or pleasure. There is no question that exceptionally soft sheets make getting into bed feel better and eating dinner on beautiful plates makes a meal feel more special. Sharing food has such an emotional component. Perhaps that’s one reason I love collecting old dishes. Setting a beautiful table is a way of creating a joyful atmosphere for people I love. Which again is a fascinating insight into the values I place on objects. Not just aesthetic, but also emotional. My collection of vintage plates is emotionally linked to my desire to fill my house with people I love, to make and share a beautiful meal. Maybe not so different from decorating my nest with white pebbles.

As adults, we have relatively few objects that we truly use for play. If you think of deep play as reaching a state of flow, as adults, we most often reach that either in sports or in creative pursuits, like painting, drawing, music or photography. There are a few games played by adults outside of those categories - poker and Mahjong come to mind, and of course in the digital age, video games. In the wild, playing with objects is typically reserved for the young.

There’s a piece of the accumulated stuff in our houses that is also undoubtedly tied to mortality and legacy. And for me, a sense of needing to preserve history. For example, what do we do with our grandmother‘s china, a musket from the civil war, or a clock that has been in our family since the late 1800s. There are objects that we hold onto perhaps out of obligation, perhaps out of a desire to feel a part of something larger. Maybe the family heirlooms are away of declaring who we are, where we come from the way our last names did in the past. And in one sense, bequeathing objects to others offers the illusion of immortality, which may be why discarding some items feels like a betrayal of our forebears. Among other species, intergenerational transfers are rare, though chimpanzee mothers will give their offspring a tool as part of teaching them how to find food.

The Connection

I connect deeply with animals, places and people, so perhaps it is not surprising that reminders of special moments and relationships are hard for me to part with, even when the objects no longer have a utilitarian purpose. Every year or two, as the vernal equinox approaches, I take a weekend to work on releasing some of the accumulated stuff, creating space both physically and mentally.

Anyone else struggle with this? Do you have a Spring cleaning ritual?

I would love to hear about it in the comments.

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So, I thought I would write about it. After closely observing these beautiful local wild cats for years, there are certain specific things I look at when trying to identify a cat. These individual traits allow me to recognize familiar bobcats and also help me identify new individuals or estimate the age of a particular bobcat. The following is a list of attributes I study in Northern California bobcats, accompanied by photos showing the variation in these traits.

Who?

#1 Ears: I look at ear tufts, how long they are and whether they are even. Some bobcats have short tufts, or uneven tufts.

#2 Face shape: I look at their face shape and particularly the “chops” on the side of the face. How long and narrow vs. how round is their face? The face could be narrow or wide, typically females have narrower faces, but not always.

#3 Nose: There is a wide variation in nose color: pink, peachy-orange, brown or even black.

#4 Eyes: Similarly, there is a lot of variation in eye color: amber, tan, green, or blue-green.

#5 Coat: Bobcats have spotted coats, and their markings range from very faint grayish dark spots to clearly defined black dots or rosettes and many things in between. The color of the coat varies from grayish to beige to rusty orange.

#6 Front legs: The inner markings on a bobcat’s front legs are a unique pattern of stripes and spots.

#7 Rear view: If I can get a clear view of the back end (with tail lifted), I can identify the sex of the cat (looking for “furry marbles”).

#8 Injuries: Sometimes an individual will have other injuries or scars that could be on their face or nose.

#9 Size: A bobcat’s size can be hard to tell with only one cat in front of you, especially from a distance but in general females are smaller than males, with their weight only being slightly heavier than a large house cat.

#10 Location: Where I see a bobcat is also helpful in identifying an individual, because they are solitary and territorial. If I am seeing one in the same area repeatedly it is likely to be the same individual. It is not a guarantee, however, as there is seasonal movement for courting and mating as well as for fluctuating prey availability. Territories can overlap. And at times, they do push each other out of territories, so a new bobcat may take over another cat’s space.

Beyond my capabilities:

Scent: Perhaps the most important individual marker for other wildlife, and one beyond my abilities, is a bobcat’s unique scent. Bobcats scent-mark through urine, scat, scratching and rolling. I observe bobcats doing all these things. Walking by later, I may pick up the faint scent of urine or scat, or see the claw marks on a fallen tree, but my perception stops there. My sense of smell doesn’t allow me to differentiate between various bobcats.

Sound: Similarly, while it is rare for bobcats to vocalize outside of mating or raising kittens, I can differentiate (sometimes) between male and female calls, and understand the intonation of particular bobcat’s calls to her kittens - a higher pitch chirping to call them to her and a low guttural sound to warn of a danger or tell them to stay put - but I cannot ID an individual bobcat by sound.

How old?

Time ages all of us – and much like wrinkles or gray hair for a human, years spent trying to survive in the wild leaves a mark on wildlife. To determine the age of a bobcat (if I don’t know them) I look at:

#1 The ears: The tips of the ears are susceptible to damage in conflict with other bobcats, coyote, from parasites, etc. So when I see a “new” (to me) cat, I first look at the ears, checking whether they’re torn or have cuts, are missing the tip, etc.

#2 The teeth: If a bobcat yawns or is eating and I have a clear view of his/her mouth, I look at the teeth. Specifically, I check to see if any of the four canines (the longest teeth, used for hunting and killing prey) are broken or missing.

#3 The coat: Does the fur look bright, shiny and fresh or duller, perhaps a tiny bit more ragged or patchy; sometimes on older bobcats, the markings may be a bit faded (though some cats have faint spots to begin with). Sometimes older cats appear a bit more gaunt – though healthy bobcats appear quite thin.

#4 The face: And last there’s what I lovingly think of as “kitten face” the way a young bobcat’s face is shaped differently than an adult. Between 1-2 years old they develop a fully adult-looking face, in my experience.

And… so what?

In writing the lists above, I realized that the question of HOW I identify bobcats is linked to a deeper, potentially more interesting question – WHY do I do it? Why does identifying and knowing an individual bobcat matter? Why is it worth knowing wild individuals, for me or anyone else?

Maybe, for me, the answer is the same, regardless of species. To get to know, really know, another living being, is a gift. Time is our most valuable resource, so taking the time to truly pay attention is a sign of deep respect. And bearing witness to another’s life is a privilege and the truest form of love that I know.

I find so much joy in observing local wildlife and getting to know these places and individual animals over time, across seasons and life stages. Bobcats are abundant in the San Francisco Bay area, including in suburban neighborhoods, where greenbelts provide important paths for wildlife to navigate human developments. Bobcats are the species closest to my heart, but I am confident that observing any species deeply would enrich my life. Coyotes, foxes, squirrels, deer, ravens, great horned owls, and many more diverse species live right alongside us.

My fascination with learning about individual bobcats started with a curiosity about their lives, and a desire to understand how they experience the world. People who know me well might describe me as persistent or determined, as well as insatiably curious. Which means studying bobcats has been a deep dive, many years of observing physical details and characteristics and also temperament. For a long time, I kept a wildlife journal, noting every species sighting along with location, weather and behavior observed. That allowed me to see patterns, both micro and macro. Each animal is an individual with its own lived experience and physical abilities and personality. It is one thing to know that intellectually, it is another thing entirely to feel it in my body, to see firsthand how many times a bobcat must locate prey, take a leap, and miss the mark before eventually landing a meal. I, too, have tried things and failed before succeeding. Watching a mother hunt for hours on end, trying to capture enough prey to feed not only herself but her three kittens is so relatable. It reminds me of nights when I was exhausted, wanting to crawl into bed, but needed to make dinner for my own sons. And she must run back to the den with her precious prey in her mouth, avoiding coyotes looking to steal the meal, as well as other threats like cars. The effort expended to survive is immense. The more time I spend with bobcats and other wildlife, the greater my belief that we have more in common with wild lives than many people realize.

When I see wildlife experiencing some of the same emotions and struggles that I do, empathy blossoms. If we look at wild lives and wild places as objects, as things, then it becomes all too easy to exercise extractive behaviors, focused on what we get from any given moment in nature. Reciprocity means focusing on an exchange - not by keeping score but with love - giving willingly as well as receiving gratefully. Truly seeing an individual and the details of his/her life means seeing that they have had parents, may have babies of their own. Watching a life daily or weekly means seeing the effort expended to find food, protect territory and to protect and teach their young.

If nature is my teacher and the wild is my classroom, there is no end to my learning. There is always more to understand, to notice. I can experience intimacy with the wild by spending time observing. And seeing these moments firsthand, I celebrate their successes and grieve their losses. I can’t know what it would be like to experience the world as a wild animal but can imagine what it might be like to lose a mate or a baby. Or to have to hunt for my food most of my waking hours, balancing risks and opportunities. I can feel empathy for these bobcats even without being able to know exactly what it is like to BE one. Feeling connected to nature in this personal way benefits me and, in propelling my conservation work, I hope it benefits wildlife. Seeing these local bobcats as individuals broadens my view to seeing humans as part of a network of living beings, interrelated and interacting every day. With our energies inextricably linked, the presence, or absence, of any individual has repercussions for everything in the immediate area. And I have learned that removing an animal, whether by predation, disease or road strikes invariably impacts other living things in the area. Which heightens my desire to do what I can to promote coexistence.

Do you have local wildlife that you observe closely? What have you learned in doing so? I would love to hear about it in the comments.

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A cold wind announced the incoming rainstorm. I felt the chill through my coat, and I suspect she did too. She was walking at a fast clip. Her steps felt determined, yet it was unclear where she was headed. She crossed from one side of the road to the other, and then mere seconds later, crossed back again. I trailed behind, quietly observing, curious about her destination. Tall clumps of grass separated the dark, unctuous mud puddles. She carefully sidestepped the inky pools to avoid getting her feet wet. Wearing rubber boots I tried as best I could to step around the puddles as well, but the wet grass brushed up against us both, leaving us damp.

I filled the silence in the space between us with a conversation in my head. What are you doing here? Why are you so far from home? Did someone do something to hurt you or scare you? And where are you going in this miserable storm?

Water hit my hood and forehead, dripping in icy rivers down my cheeks. As the wind and rain accelerated, I started thinking about finding shelter myself. Covered head to toe in tiny water droplets, she found some first, nosing her way into an almost invisible opening. Slinking into a dark space between some willows, she was hidden completely from where I was. Sorely tempted to try to squeeze myself into the same shelter, I instead walked back to my car, cold droplets stinging my face as the wind whipped the rain in increasing fury.

The questions in my mind continued. I wished I could have talked to her, to find out why she was in this new place. Why she looked so nervous. Was this a temporary move, or a permanent one?

While I could’ve asked all these questions aloud, they sadly would have been met with no verbal answer. Because my companion in the wind and rain, a beautiful female, was a bobcat. And try as hard as I can - and wish as hard as I might - I can only “speak” to her with my energy, and listen to her energy, her rare vocalizations, all while reading her body language.

If she had, in turn, asked me what I was doing out in the storm, I would have said that time in nature helps me sustain myself, my energy and equilibrium are restored in the quiet and the absence of expectations. I truly enjoy making meals for people I love, setting a beautiful table and making them feel cared for. Similarly, I love giving gifts and picking out things for someone that I think they will truly enjoy. And at the same time, the holidays are a lot. A lot of condensed pressure and group socializing in a short window of time, which can be challenging as an introvert. It can be hard for me to slow down, but on this stormy day, I gave myself permission to take a beat and connect with nature before hosting Christmas Eve dinner.

This shared moment in the rain felt like a Christmas gift, being fully present in such a rare, intimate space with a wild being.

I was out in the storm seeking a moment of quiet solitude before the hectic holiday celebrations. She clearly needed a good place to sit through the storm. What puzzles me is why she didn’t go to one of her usual places in the trees within her own territory and instead was more than a half mile away from those familiar places, under trees where I have never seen her in the last five years.

I can’t know what prompted her move but feel confident that she was focused on surviving the storm. And whatever the reason for her departure from her territory, I hope with all my heart that she found refuge in a dry, calm, safe place. The kind of shelter we all need from the storms of life.

Postscript: I did not see her for a week, which was unusual. But then I spotted her, back in her usual territory. I have since seen her back in the “new” place a second time, this time on a sunny day, and I still wonder what prompts these journeys.

Note: Respecting wildlife is important. You can read more about my approach to time in the field in this essay.

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Share Tales from a Wild Life by Sarah Killingsworth

Every time I go out into the field, I learn something new. Sometimes I notice a small additional nuance about behavior, other times it is a revelation that leaves me in awe. I have observed things that contradict the literature about a species. My curiosity, combined with the unexpected moments, motivates me to spend time in the field, even with a species that I know intimately.

For my final newsletter of 2025, I thought it would be fun to share some things I have learned over the years while observing local wildlife. Predictably, given how much time I spend with bobcats, this list is a little bobcat heavy.

1. River otters eat pelicans

Years ago, I found it mind-boggling enough to learn that river otters eat birds like ducks, cormorants, coots, and gulls. But what truly blew my mind was hearing about and then seeing river otters kill a brown pelican. An otter’s hunting strategy for most birds is to pull them under water by their legs. But for brown pelicans, river otters grab their throat pouch and drown them. The arrival of brown pelicans in the area - a unique food source - typically coincides with when a mother river otter is feeding her pups, and these large birds provide more calories for the family. More recently, the pelicans also seem to be getting more savvy and avoiding the area where they have been hunted in years past. It is crazy to watch evolution of behavior of both predator and prey in real time.

2. Badgers eat mushrooms

Watching badgers for years, I saw them eat gophers, voles, and grubs. I always thought they were carnivorous. But following one in a field on a Winter’s day, I watched a badger scratch up and eat field mushrooms. Not just one, but several. Turns out, they are omnivores!

3. Bobcats hunt birds and regularly climb telephone poles and fence posts

In my early days of observing wild bobcats, I expected them to hunt small mammals, and the occasional lizard but hadn’t expected to see one hunt birds. I have watched them pounce on quail in the bushes, as well as jump four feet vertically in the air and clap their front paws together to catch a quail taking off from the ground. Sometimes when hunting quail, a bobcat will climb a fence point for a higher vantage point. Which ties into a related surprise – bobcats frequently climb posts and poles. If a bobcat is being chased by another bobcat, a coyote, or anything else, it will often climb. I watched one male reach a shocking height on a telephone pole while being chased by another male. Bobcats frequently jump to the top of fence posts or climb wooden posts for a better vantage point for prey as well as to scan for threats.

4. Bobcats hate wind more than they hate water

There’s the common perception that cats hate water. And it is true that bobcats prefer to wait to hunt in the morning until the dew has dried from the grass, and bobcats will wait out the rain, staying dry in the brush if a storm is a day or less. But I have seen bobcats hunting in sopping wet fields in the early morning, in dense fog that feels like drizzle and even hunting in the pouring rain. When I started focusing on photographing bobcats, I did not expect the wind to affect them. But I quickly realized that they don’t like being out in the wind (which makes sense, just like it drains energy for us, it takes extra energy for them to move through it). I am less likely to find a bobcat on a windy day than on a rainy day. And if they are out in the wind, they tend to be more skittish. I imagine it is because they can’t hear as well when it is windy (and that makes it harder to avoid threats like coyotes, humans and cars as well as to locate and hunt gophers).

5. Deer chase coyotes

I think of deer as prey for coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions and bears. But I have seen deer be aggressive towards bobcats - approaching a bobcat and stomping their feet. And I watched a pair of deer chase a coyote in circles at high speed around a gravel parking lot (it was early summer, so I suspect they were protecting a fawn). Sometimes the prey species is the aggressor in an interaction.

6. Despite the scientific literature saying bobcats are solitary, territorial and females won’t allow overlapping territories with other females, I have seen related females (mother/daughter) overlap at the edge of adjacent territories

Other than when mating or mothers raising kittens, bobcats are solitary. The literature says male territories will overlap with female territories, but that females won’t allow overlap with another female (nor a male with another male). I have, however, observed a mother/daughter pair of bobcats allow their territories to overlap, even when the daughter was an adult, with kittens of her own. Their territories were side by side, and they typically did not interact with each other. But on occasion, they would be in the same area (the overlapping edge of the territories) and even come within inches of each other, with no aggression. You would expect a defensive/aggressive posture, vocalizing and/or a swat with a front paw (which a mother bobcat would typically display towards her offspring when it is time for them to disperse). Dispersal is often a juvenile being forcibly evicted from the natal territory. Perhaps it is a combination of abundant food and individual temperament that allows them to coexist in overlapping areas.

7. Wildlife is more bothered by bicycles on a road than cars, in places where bicycles are infrequent.

Bobcats typically flatten or run away from the sound of a bicycle on the road, and coyotes run away as well. Possibly because it is an unfamiliar sight, or unfamiliar sound. I wonder if bobcats and coyotes can hear more/different sounds from the bicycles’ mechanisms than I can hear as a human. Some wildlife find people outside of cars more threatening than people inside their cars (which makes using cars as a blind a good strategy) but the sound of cars (or sometimes the sound of specific trucks) can also spook wildlife like bobcats or coyotes. They can associate certain vehicle sounds with danger, it seems.

8. Cows chase bobcats

An extremely small percentage of livestock losses are due to predation. Weather, disease, dehydration, infection etc. kill the vast majority of livestock. But it makes sense to me that a cow would see a wolf or a mountain lion as a potential threat, and like the black-tailed deer described above, might attempt to run a large predator off, chasing it. I did not expect, however, cows to chase bobcats. And I have seen it multiple times. Bobcats will hunt deer, particularly in colder climates, but I have never seen a bobcat even look like he/she was contemplating hunting a cow. Given their size/weight differential, it would seem impossible. Every time I have seen a cow start to chase a bobcat, the bobcat is in a field with cattle, doing something other than paying attention to the cattle. Sometimes the bobcat is actively hunting a gopher, poised over the gopher hole. Other times, the bobcat has been resting, or grooming, or just passing through a field. And the cow runs at the bobcat at full speed. I have even seen the cow continue to chase the bobcat through coyote brush, literally jumping over bushes after the bobcat has fled into cover.

Wrapping up:

Should I make this my annual December newsletter theme?

What’s something you’ve learned in nature by observation that surprised you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Wishing you moments filled with curiosity, wonder, love and joy in 2026!

I have been having a lot of fun with experimental, abstract techniques for landscape images this year (you can see more on my Instagram), and several photographers have asked me recently about how I create those images. I thought it would be a good topic for a newsletter, especially since the low light of winter is the perfect time to play with techniques that require a slow shutter (a neutral density filter can assist on brighter days). Some parts of this essay are a bit technical, but I hope the discussion and the images will be interesting for photographers and non-photographers alike.

I sometimes find myself feeling photographically stuck in a rut, uninspired or worn out. And my strategy for these periods is to pause what I am working on and shift to experimentation. I love trying different techniques which may have low “keeper” rates but are immensely satisfying when the elements come together, when I create something that feels unique.

There’s that old saying, that you have to learn the rules to break them. And I think that’s a trajectory many photographers go through (I certainly did). First, I learned the basics of the camera and all the settings. Then I dove deep into composition and post-processing. And then I was eager for a new photographic challenge.

I started with panning several years ago. Panning is a form of intentional camera movement moving the camera horizontally with a slow shutter speed, blurring the background while keeping the subject’s eye or face sharp. It is challenging, and there are a lot of misses, but this technique is something I mix into my shooting regularly in low light, with both mammals and birds. The blur of legs running or wings flapping really conveys a sense of motion.

Next, I played around with zoom-blur, spinning the zoom ring on my 70-200mm lens and creating a starburst effect. I played with moving from wider to closer angles, and vice versa, zooming in and zooming out. I don’t utilize this technique very often, though I like some of the images I created when I first started playing with it. I am planning to do more of it this winter.

Most recently, I have spent more time with intentional camera movement (ICM) in landscapes. I love the painterly, abstract quality it creates. It truly feels like painting with my camera. I lose all track of time when I am doing it – literally hours fly by. It has the added advantage of not needing a wildlife subject to produce images that make me really, really happy.

Depending on the light, I typically shoot at 1/10-1/30 of a second. If there’s a lot of light, my aperture might be f/22 but I typically aim for something like f/7.1 to f/4, occasionally wide open at 2.8. I set the ISO at 64. And I find that my older Nikon D850 creates more pleasing abstracts than my mirrorless Z8.

There are so many different ways to move the camera, this newsletter describes the most common ways that I do it. How many inches you move the camera, and how fast you do it, will create different results. As will changing the shutter speed and aperture, even a little bit. The faster the shutter, typically the faster I need to move the camera to get the desired blur. In any given situation, I try lots of different settings and movements – it’s a bit like experimental cooking, trying to add and adjust flavors as you work.

It’s good to have a sense of fun while you’re trying these different techniques. There’s a lot of trial and error. I once had someone say to me “I don’t think it works that way” watching me slide my camera left to right and back again repeatedly while taking photos. It gave me a good laugh, and I explained what I was doing. I have had other people ask me “what are you trying to do?” when they see me using these techniques. Because it does look a little nutty to intentionally NOT hold my camera still (and some of the movements look like I am going to throw it or drop it).

Here’s a comparison of the same scene, an ICM image and then a traditional image.

By moving the camera when the shutter is open, I am blending colors and tones and creating a unique image. I look for landscapes or objects with contrasting colors and tones, and for some movements, strong vertical or horizontal lines in the composition. Things that are much brighter than the rest of the scene will create hot spots or white lines, which I try to avoid. For each of the movements listed below, I am also sharing an image, which is just one example of the end result using that movement. But this is a dynamic form of art, and tiny adjustments in angle, speed, or something moving in the frame itself - like the shifting pattern of the clouds or placement of the white foam with waves breaking- will all influence the end result in mysterious and exciting ways.

• Horizontal slide, holding the camera out in front of you and swinging it from left to right or from right to left. This is my preferred move when there are horizontal elements in the landscape, like a river bank, a line of hills, clouds, a sunset, or my favorite, waves at the beach. A variation on this is to flick your wrist, so that the camera stays in front of you but the viewfinder flicks from left to right, pivoting on the lower right corner (I am right handed). Another variation is to move in a slight arc as you go from one side to the other.

• Vertical slide, moving from eye or chest level up or down. I find this works best when there are strong vertical lines – a grove of trees, a clump of bamboo, metal bars, etc. Usually I move continuously up and down while shooting, then pause to take a look at the last batch of images and make adjustments to my settings.

• An S-curve shimmy, holding the camera with both hands. I typically do this when working close to something like bark on a tree or colors/textures in rocks.

• A physical zoom, pulling the camera away or pushing it towards the subject. I do this with trees, rocks, leaves, and other small objects, most often with flowers and leaves.

• A jiggle or shake is a front to back push-and-pull on the sides of the camera. It often creates a look that mimics multiple exposure (described below).

• And the spin, where I hold one end of the camera and spin my wrist to the left or the right, as if I am turning a steering wheel. This creates a bull’s eye effect in the image, which can be fascinating, or dizzying. Or both!

Something I started trying for the first time this past year is multiple exposures. These are multiple photos that the camera combines into one file. And I definitely feel like I need more time to play with it, to discern what situations create compelling images (and this technique has the added complexity of deciding how many images to compress into one file – I typically do 3 or 5). With mirrorless cameras, you can see the images “stacking” with each shot in the viewfinder, so you can compose really carefully. My favorite images using this strategy have been silhouettes against colorful skies, and architectural elements.

It is important for me to make time for experimentation and unedited creativity, at least once a month. I love getting out and shooting something that isn’t for a project or story that I am working on. I enjoy the creative process, the experimentation and getting into a state of flow.

What helps jump start your creative practice? Has this newsletter inspired you to get out and play with your camera? I would love to hear about it in the comments!

In our society, the dominant narrative is that we are separate from nature. That other animals and plants are something to have dominion over, to extract from, while humans are unique and superior. But we are animals, part of nature. And our rhythms, our lives, parallel the rhythms and lives of other species and of our planet.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer provides a different way of looking at our world. A more holistic one that honors lived experience and emphasizes the value of seeing entire ecosystems – and everything in them - as our kin. What deeply resonated for me was the reciprocal relationship we could and should have with our planet. To give, not just to take.

Growing up in New England, the differences between seasons were sharp. The heat and humidity of summer, followed by the cool crisp air and riot of foliage in Fall, then the incredible hush of walking in the midst of a Winter snowstorm, the world blanketed in a magical white. And Spring, a triumphant resurrection from under the snow, with exuberant growth, bright green shoots and flower buds. The month I miss the most from living in the East is October. I yearn for the chill in the air, the crunch of the dry leaves under foot. The smell of their vegetal bodies as they break down and lend nourishment to the soil. And of course, the incredible colors - yellow, oranges, scarlet and burgundy. Deciduous trees go out with a fiery bang, one last hurrah, signaling the closure of an annual cycle. It is the season to release what is no longer needed (and may have served us in the past), to compost what we shed, and move unencumbered by the weight of that material, as we embrace rest and prepare for a new season of growth.

The seasonal differences are less pronounced in the mild climate of my current home in Northern California. Changes are subtle, yet there’s a clear moment when we cross over the threshold to the next season. When I pay attention, I can feel the shifts in wind, temperature, light and moisture that indicate we are moving from one season to another. The cool damp fog of early summer, the hot dry air of September in a drought-parched landscape. And then in October or sometimes early November, like the flick of a light switch something changes. And Winter is here, knocking insistently at the door.

Seemingly overnight, the mornings are colder. And the night skies, no longer blanketed with thick fog, are clear with stars sparkling like crystal and the radiant moon visible as I hike before sunrise. At the same time, the Great Horned Owls take up their nightly calling, and male bobcats, typically less visible than the females, start to approach females in territories nearby. The courting season has begun.

Around the same time the night temperature drops, we get our first rain of Winter. And as the rain starts, we have new arrivals. Our familiar Winter friends, migrating from elsewhere, are recurring but temporary fixtures in our landscape.

For many years, I kept a daily wildlife journal, documenting the species I saw each day that I was out in the field in Point Reyes National Seashore. For each day, I noted the species, time, location and behavior. Over the years clear patterns emerged. Burrowing Owls typically arrive the third week of October. The “Winter” flock of Western Snowy Plovers start to arrive in late July and by November, they cover the shoreline. They overwinter in Point Reyes before leaving for their breeding grounds in early Spring (a small percentage stay and nest in Point Reyes). In October or early November, for a frenzied week, elegant terns take over one beach, feeding their young. The Meadowlarks arrive from colder climates in late October, blazing yellow chests, singing a jubilant song through our Winter. American Kestrels arrive in October as well – and like the burrowing owls, they will typically move on by March. I greet all of them with excitement because they are harbingers for the Winter rain, like the falling colorful leaves in the East. There is satisfaction and comfort in the seasonal rhythms, being tuned in to the predictability of nature, even as climate change has shifted some of the wildlife’s arrival times and changed weather patterns.

The seasons remind me of the transitory nature of all our experiences in life. The very best days and the very worst days. None of it lasts. In the hectic rush of modern life I sometimes feel so focused on the grind, on getting things done, and just running on the hamster wheel of daily life that I miss being fully present in the moment. And truly experiencing the gifts as well as the challenges of life. Some days, I am just powering through, racing to the next thing. As Winter approaches, I am reminded of the need to slow down. To take in the sunrise, the moonrise, the cold air on my face and hands as I hike in the glow of the quarter moon.

When I go camping, I go to sleep when it’s dark, and wake with the sunrise. There’s beauty in embracing the rhythms of light and darkness. We often associate darkness with negative things, with scary creatures, and evil. As visually oriented animals, it makes sense to me that the inability to see things creates fear, insecurity, and uncertainty. For thousands of years, we’ve had a desire to tame or conquer the night with light – with candles and fires, long before the convenience of an electric switch. I love the darkness, the opportunity to focus on sounds and be attuned to a different sense. I am captivated by the magic of nocturnal creatures like bats, owls, badgers and foxes whose cycle of rest is the opposite of ours.

But in the digital age, so much of our existence is removed from being in our physical body, preventing us from being truly present. Electricity and technology allow us to work longer hours, to artificially reduce our hours of rest, untethered to seasonality. Each day, the first thing I do and the last thing I do is check of my phone for texts and emails. Even though I know rest is a critical component of health and nurturing ourselves, it can be hard for me. Grounding myself in the seasons and embracing the coming Winter darkness gives me permission to rest. Maybe we all need permission to rest, in a society hyper-focused on productivity. Rest allows me to tap into my inner fire, wisdom, and creativity. So as counterintuitive as it seems to me at times, I know that rest is the way to be most authentically productive.

Rest is a necessary daily cycle (nightly sleep) as well as an annual cycle – Winter, a season of rest and renewal, is when we are gathering our strength and also gathering our tribe. I don’t think it’s an accident that so many of our holiday traditions are clustered so tightly between October and January. We gather our community for the coming darker days, nourishing our spirits while (hopefully) embracing a slower pace. Soon it will be raining more frequently in Northern California. The sky will lower, the ground will soak, creeks and rivers will rise, and the hills will turn vibrant green.

Our animal kin similarly move from Fall into Winter, preparing for the season of rest as sunlight and food are waning. Bears have a phase of hyperphagia, bulking up before their Winter hibernation. Birds know when it is time to migrate, tuned into changes in light and temperature, and other things we humans can’t even perceive. An unspoken call to move to their Winter feeding and resting areas. The journey to a safe Winter spot can be arduous. Some birds rest along the way, as they migrate. Others, like Pacific Golden Plovers, travel thousands of miles without stopping, resting only once they arrive.

As it is with nature, so it is with us. There are seasons of life: seasons of grief, seasons of illness and injury, as well as seasons of joy, of play, and of love. The more time I spend with wildlife in nature, the more I see similarities between humans and other species. We are not so different.

And Winter is a season for all of us to rest.

If this piece resonated with you, I would love to hear in the Comments what your favorite rest/renewal ritual is.

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Photo by Daniel Dietrich

Humans are far more dangerous than other animals. I have had multiple unsettling interactions with other people (of both genders, but mostly men), where I have been followed or yelled at, cursed at, and harassed. Like most female photographers and adventurers that I know, I have a tool kit of things I do and bring with me that are designed to try and keep me safe. These include self-defense classes, carrying bear spray, carrying a tripod, having a satellite device for SOS calls, letting loved ones know where I am going and when I will be back, carefully monitoring the people I interact with, scanning situations, and trusting my gut. I greet everyone I encounter on the trail. My vigilance includes turning around to check that every man who passes me on the trail continues away from me and doesn’t turn around to follow me; giving a wide berth if walking near a group of men, glancing around the area before unlocking my parked car, and scanning my surroundings before getting out of my car with my gear. And I always leave if my gut says a person or situation isn’t safe – that would be my one piece of advice for anyone else. Listen to your body. If you “feel” like something is wrong, get out of the situation immediately. Your body recognizes danger and threats before your conscious mind registers them.

The things I listed are things I do every time I go out. Few, if any of these items cross the mind of the male photographers I have spoken to. A male friend told me I was “unusually vigilant” which may be a function of my prior experiences, but other women have shared similar habits and concerns about the risks posed by other people. For safety, many female photographers travel with their husbands, or in a group of women.

Photo by Ryan Hopper (that’s me on the left)

There’s apprehension around physical dangers, but there’s also emotional safety in the field. People expect women to be “nice” and accommodating — meaning they will do or say things to a woman that they would not do or say to a man in the field. As a society, we expect women to prioritize relationships over self and getting along with others over self-advocacy. I have been criticized for standing up for myself, for speaking out on behalf of our wild neighbors who have no voice. We teach elementary school students “if you see something, say something,” but few adults are willing to converse with a person doing something obviously detrimental to wildlife or other people. Countless times, people have come to me to share a concern about another person’s behavior - from off-leash dogs to things like a group surrounding wildlife at close range or literally running towards an animal - and ask if I will “talk to them.” The person asking me doesn’t feel comfortable having the conversation and hopes that I will. Depending on the situation, I may try. I generally approach these conversations from a friendly, helpful place but reactions are mixed. People are sometimes grateful for more information but all too often are dismissive or aggressive. As a society, discourse is increasingly polarized.

Writing about these experiences feels dangerous in and of itself. Will it draw negative attention? In my letter to a bobcat mama (published by Wild Voices Collective here), I acknowledge tears in the field. We say that “nature heals” and I believe it does, but that implies that we are wounded when we seek it. And we are. All of us have wounds in various stages of healing. A history of trauma doesn’t grant entitlement though, either to experiences in nature or permission to treat others poorly. We must respect the wild places that bring us solace and safety.

The act of writing, including writing vulnerable pieces, is an act of strength, and perhaps also of defiance because being strong does not mean being unfeeling. I can be strong and be vulnerable. At times, I have been nervous about sharing my experiences in the wild out of fear that I will be misunderstood and specifically misunderstood in a way that discredits me or undermines my professional work in conservation storytelling. I worry that people will use my words to suggest I am not “professional” enough. Particularly in a male-dominated field, like wildlife photography. And perhaps naming this is a way to try and preempt that negative feedback.

I often think about the question of objectivity in photography, especially when working on a story. How do my emotions, my own personal experiences of the world, impact what I capture with my camera? And I have two thoughts about this: First, like any professional, if I am working on a project or an assignment, I am focused on that story. Waves of intense emotions like grief are not frequent occurrences, but they are important to acknowledge. Second, tuning into our emotions as photographers and filmmakers makes us better storytellers. Our emotional reactions highlight places where the story might be compelling, or the type of behavior that might be of interest to other people. A great story has unique characters or events, with an underlying universal, relatable emotional theme. I would argue that being aware of and able to articulate our emotions, even emotions when we are in the field, is an asset in conservation storytelling. I also believe that being a photographer is not actually neutral, or objective. In choosing what to include in a frame as well as what to exclude (which might be even more important) we are editing a visual story that reflects our state of mind and emotions while we are in the field. Which is why I think photographers generally do their most compelling work when they are filled with a feeling of love for their subject.

Whether that love is for a city, a person or an animal, our depth of feeling is actually our greatest asset. It is quite literally the lens through which we share the story.

If this piece resonates with you, I invite you to share your feelings about physical and emotional safety in the comments.

It’s a long way down to the ground. Dusty earth, dry grasses at the base of eucalyptus trees. It’s hard to believe anything, let alone a young red-tailed hawk, could survive a fall from a nest in the canopy of these eucalyptus trees. But he did. Too young to fly, he stayed earth-bound. When the homeowner found him, she brought him into the Bird Rescue Center in a cardboard shipping box. And now, just a few days later, I was driving past the same cluster of eucalyptus trees to photograph his return to the nest.

Excited to participate in my first renesting, adrenaline was pumping on this early Saturday morning drive. In another car, the young red-tailed hawk was riding in the back seat in a cardboard pet carrier, on his way from the Bird Rescue Center to the nest site. I can only imagine what he was feeling in this foreign world, heading back to his arboreal home. He was healthy and uninjured, so the plan was to get him back into his nest as quickly as possible, reunited with his parents. When my iPhone announced “your destination is on the right”, I slowed the car to a crawl and started scanning for the nest. Not wanting to be late for such an important moment and hoping to photograph the young hawk’s arrival, I was the first person at the property. Eurasian collared doves cooed, and two black-tail deer bucks moved silently past as I got out of my car. The nocturnal fog had already evaporated, leaving early morning cool, damp air, but within a few hours it would be sunny and parched. I could feel the heat coming. As I scanned, I saw a small nest in one tree, but that wasn’t it. Red-tailed hawk nests are quite large.

Renesting a hawk is a team effort. It takes a combination of expertise in birds and in trees to be successful. Luckily, generous local arborists volunteer to assist the Bird Rescue Center in putting baby raptors back into their nests. Once the wildlife rehabber and arborist for this renesting arrived, we walked around the eucalyptus grove together. All three of us scanned for the nest, and from a spot across the street, the eagle-eyed rehabber was able to spot the nest. It was 200 feet up. We hiked into the field at the base of the tree, thigh-high grasses all around us. I started checking for ticks on my jeans. Looking up at the nest from another vantage point, we saw a juvenile in the nest, a sibling of the little guy waiting to return to the canopy to be reunited with his parents. The juvenile in the nest began “rowing” - stretching and flapping and swirling her wings. The rehabber said they do this in part to build strength and perhaps in part because the rapid growth of their wings is uncomfortable, and this movement released her tension/discomfort.

Eyeing the nest, the arborist was skeptical that he could get up to it, given its height and location amongst many thin branches. But he gave it a number of tries, launching his “guide rope” high into the air with a slingshot. Several arcing rounds were close to the nest, but none land in a location over a branch strong enough to allow him to make the climb. So, the assignment shifted, from finding and scaling to the original nest, to finding a secondary nest location nearby.

Our juvenile red-tailed hawk was sitting waiting in a cardboard pet carrier, labeled with a tag and his ID number. Next to him on the ground was a second, blue plastic carrier, and a basket of supplies. Knowing that we might not be able to put the nestling back up in the original nest, the rehabber brought a woven basket, like one you’d use for serving someone breakfast in bed, which could be used to put a second nest somewhere in sight of the original nest. Red-tailed hawks are diligent parents and will typically care for their babies if they can see/hear them from an original nest, even if the baby is in a new location.

So, we continued walking around the field, looking for another tree on this property with a junction point of limbs that would support a “nest” basket and this baby. Eucalyptus trees are good locations for a nest - smooth, and hard for predators to climb. The leaves and branches hide and protect nestlings from ravens, great-horned owls and other flying predators. As we walked, we saw an adult circling the area. Good news. A parent was in the vicinity. Once they decided on a location that looked safe for the juvenile and feasible for the arborist, the arborist gathered his gear to climb the tree (this location was *only* 100 feet off the ground). Making it look incredibly easy, he “walked” the rope vertically up into the tree canopy, like he was simply walking up steps.

To help ensure that this nestling remained in the new nest and was calm for the transport, the rehabber used a hemostat (which looks like a cross between scissors and tweezers) to feed pieces of mouse to the young hawk. He didn’t take the food initially, but after she stroked his beak and throat a bit, he took the first bite. And then eagerly ate several more bites. Once he began to slow down, she said that’s the signal that he’s had enough. The fluffy juvenile was so calm in her arms, and her gloved hands carefully grasped his ankles, maintaining control of the razor-sharp talons while cradling his body and wings against her ribcage. She carefully placed a towel and then the young hawk into the blue plastic transport box which will be brought up into the tree by a rope.

Her next task was to make a new nest. She did this by taking new shoots of eucalyptus from the trees and weave them into the rectangular basket. Putting eucalyptus on it helped camouflage the nest as well as make it more comfortable and familiar for the hawk family. Looking around the grove near where she sat on the ground, she carefully selected thin pieces of eucalyptus. One branch at a time, she lovingly wove them into the basket, creating a halo of eucalyptus on it. Each narrow branch was patiently and thoughtfully placed. While she created the second nest, the arborist was in the tree. He cleared out dead limbs and made a space to secure the new nest with ropes. In selecting a new location, they chose a spot surrounded by sturdy branches for the hawk to fledge. As the hawk fledged, he would hop to branches near the nest. They don’t want him to take a 100-foot tumble to the ground and wind up back in the rescue center.

After all the careful preparations, the moment of renesting arrived. First the new nest went up to the tree top by rope, to be followed by the young hawk in his carrier, once the arborist tied the new nest into place. I positioned myself at the base of the tree to photograph the rehabber bringing the blue carrier over. And she carefully tied the handle of the carrier to a rope, then the arborist hoisted the young hawk airborne, up into the canopy. Hands protected by gloves, he lifted the young hawk and placed him in center of the new nest. I held my breath for the ascent, but everything went smoothly in placing the hawk in the new nest.

After putting the young hawk into the nest, the arborist moved away slightly and then waited, watching to see if he stayed safely in the nest. Once confident that the placement was successful, the arborist descended back to the ground, collecting his ropes and gear. But not before looking back up in the tree, with a broad smile.

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My recent trip to a wilderness in Oregon was rejuvenating and magical. Like going on a scuba dive and fully submerging myself in the ecosystem. It is rare to fully be immersed in the wild on land, as cars, trail signs, other humans and near-constant cell service keep my mind at least partially tethered to the trappings of civilization. Even as I try to be fully present, a little piece of my brain is always monitoring a myriad of relations to other humans. Not so for my daytime excursions on this trip. It is undoubtedly the appeal of the back country. The completely untamed land. If I am a bit feral in my daily life, on this trip I was able to be wild.

Time in the wilderness is so liberating, because there are no requirements for being there. You don’t have to look or sound or feel a particular way to fit in. It is your home. Your first home. Spending time and coming to know wild places and wild animals intimately, it is also an opportunity to intimately learn to know yourself. A chance to see and embrace the parts of yourself that you have tucked away as inconvenient or unacceptable. My time in the wild sharing space with more-than-human beings, feels like being cradled with love. Surrounded by trees, or sitting with wildlife, is an opportunity for me to commune with a non-judgmental life force, and it is so healing. The trees don’t care if we say the right thing. The bobcat doesn’t think we are “too much” if we cry.

Children inherently embrace the wild, learning and growing as they explore beaches, forests and even their own back yards. Yet as an adult, there’s so much pressure to keep up a façade of being successful and happy, of “having it all together” that the raw, messy and uncomfortable parts of us get hidden away in our day-to-day life. The freedom in the wilderness is an untethering from the constraints, the confinement of our houses, the places that help protect us and when we are young, that help us grow. Turning to the wild outside of us allows us to return to the wild inside of us.

I have always prided myself on having a good sense of direction, a sense of place that at one point in human history would have been critical to survival. It may be superfluous now, in terms of getting someplace, but paying close attention to spaces deepens my connection to them and thereby enriches my experience. I want to notice the way the landscape undulates with hills, what direction the wind is coming from, where the sun is on the horizon so I can orient myself, and know which way is North. To inhale the scent of the landscape as I walk through it, listening for the sounds of a neighborhood, the call of wildlife. For birdsong.

Meanwhile, inside the walls of my house it feels like technology is taking over my days and my nights. In the endless world of apps, advertising banners, notifications, and badges, there’s often no space to simply be. Our bodies, our nervous systems, are not built for endless stimulation. Our modern tech world is focused on stimulating our eyes and our brain. With rapidly changing visual content, “bite-sized” bits of information, both designed for and creating short attention spans. Where we used to memorize phone numbers of family and friends, or learn the route to a favorite beach, our phones now remember everything for us. Birthdays, phone numbers, maps, weather forecasts. It is all available with a few taps of your finger, any time, (almost) anywhere. Technology has given us many things, but in its relentless presence and use, we are losing things too. Focused on a small screen in our hand while walking in a new place, we rely less on other senses, like our sense of direction to find our way to a park, or back to the car.

In Oregon, I explored forest I had never visited before with no map, and for most of my adventures, not even marked trails or dirt roads. Just thousands of acres of forest. The trees are old, reaching skyward at 80-100 feet tall. I inhaled the sweet, intoxicating scent of Ponderosa and Sugar pine, of Douglas fir. As I looked for owls, I relied on game trails or simply making my own path across the landscape. Climbing over dead trees, navigating thick brush at times, the freedom to choose my course through these physical challenges felt so liberating. And while there were a few campgrounds within 10 miles, I never encountered another person on any of my hikes for owls (after the first day, I had one friend walking with me, which is definitely safer. I will do another essay soon about safety in the wild as a woman, it’s a big topic).

I am not alone in my desire to connect with the land, with a place – hungering for a different type of connection. I, and many others, intentionally seek out opportunities to slow down, to simply be present with our thoughts and our feelings and the world around us. In a society hyper-focused on productivity this can seem like laziness or an unworthy pursuit (even in my own mind). Yet research shows that time in Nature, meditation and rest all substantially improve mental and physical health. We connect to our senses, to our intuition, to our emotions. These are the things that make us human. In the wild, we can tap into our limitless potential, embracing all aspects of our ourselves, no longer under the gaze of other humans we feel are necessary for our survival.

Since sunrise and sunset are best for hearing owl activity, I left between 5 and 6 a.m. each morning and typically stayed out till noon, went back to grab lunch midday and then went out again 4-9 pm. Each outing meant looking for good owl habitat (old growth trees adjacent to open meadows for hunting rodents) and walking for hours listening for an owl’s call.The persistent wind through the tops of the pines sounded like waves crashing on the beach. Walking through the forest, my eyes on the ground so as not to trip, the sweet smells from the pines and cedar filled my lungs and heart. Dead tree trunks 1.5-2 feet in diameter giving their nutrients and energy back to this forest were a challenge for me to step over. Sometimes I had to walk a long way around to the end of the log or sit down on it and swing my second leg over. My footsteps on the multitude of branches and dried leaves on the ground were so loud I had to stop walking to listen. Really listen. Close my eyes, cup my hands around my ears and take in all the sounds. I was listening not just to identify what animal made a particular sound but also to locate an owl in the forest. Which meant judging not just the direction the sound came from but the distance as well. Perhaps because the spongy forest floor, covered in pine needles and decomposing organic material, is soft and absorbs sound, the owls were typically half as far away as I expected.

Chickadees and dark-eyed juncos flitted about the bases of trees, twittering. Ground squirrels and chipmunks raced over dirt, fallen trees and large boulders, chirping with alarm calls as we (or other animals) approached. It was simultaneously quiet and a wild symphony. Beautiful western tanagers and northern flickers were nestled in the pines like Christmas tree ornaments. And at the edges of the forest, in sunny patches, there were countless wildflowers and an exuberance of butterflies. Pure heaven.

I am always looking for tracks and signs when I am out looking for wildlife, but here, checking scat meant assessing whether there was a black bear in the vicinity. There’s no reason to fear black bears but I wanted to be careful and not surprise one. I found a bit of coyote scat and in two different areas, fresh bear scat. In one location there was a strong scent of urine, and then I scanned and found bear scat. Clearly, he or she was marking this territory. Based on the scents, and then visual confirmation, I was instantly aware that I was visiting someone else’s home.

I relished in the freedom and sense of accomplishment in relying on my sense of direction, the contours of the land, and the direction and angle of light to help me navigate my way back to the car. With occasional one bar of cell service, I could pull up a google satellite map if I needed to, so I wasn’t going to find myself truly lost. But I purposely didn’t use my phone, as I wanted to find my way back to my car with my wits, with my senses. There was a little bit of adrenaline on the first day that I did this, particularly since I was totally alone, but relying on following a wash/small creek, and checking for familiar landmarks that I noted on my way out like a large flowering bush or huge snag, I found my way back to my car easily. And felt so alive as I did.

**Thanks to Stephen Lefkovits for the photo of me in the field.**

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Welcome to my newsletter! If you love nature, wildlife and stories about wild lives, you’re in the right place.

After years as a wildlife photographer, filmmaker and photojournalist, I’ve realized there are so many more stories that I want to share- beyond what goes into my publications in magazines, my Insta captions or my coexistence presentations. And I love writing. So, motivated by a desire to increase empathy and respect for all beings, I will be sharing a range of stories - sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes creative non-fiction that relates to my time in the wild. Stories that have intrigued and inspired me, and I hope will intrigue and inspire you.

And now, as an introduction, it’s time for some confessions:

Confession number one: My wildlife photography is always about the animal. First and foremost. Every time. It’s about the opportunity to be in the presence of a wild life. It is about the opportunity to observe behavior, to see interactions in a natural and unaltered way. My passion is connecting with wild lives in a shared space, with the well-being of the animal always paramount. Evoking empathy for the wild subjects that I photograph is my goal when I am in the field. The animal’s well-being is more important to me than getting “the shot.”

This may not feel like a confession, because many people might assume that any wildlife photographer is focused on the animal. But that’s not always (exactly) the case. At least not in the sense of being focused on the animal’s well-being. It is true that anyone photographing wildlife, on some level, wants to get “the shot”and thus the focus is literally on the animal. But putting the animal first means more than focusing on the animal as the subject of the photo. It means focusing on the animal as a sentient being whose existence hinges on one daily goal: survival. I am committed to understanding the animal’s needs, behaviors and characteristics.

I know photographers who treasure their moments of intimate connection with wildlife, and do indeed prioritize the well-being of the animal in front of them. But there are photographers who place the priority on getting the photo with little or no regard to the impact to the animal. Visiting inhumanely confined animals at game farms or using things like calls and bait prioritizes the image over the animal’s well-being, increasing the risk of human/wildlife conflict and road strikes. This manipulation of an animal’s behavior, solely to obtain a desired photo is an oft-hidden dark side of wildlife photography.

Confession two: While pre-visualization is important for visual storytelling and planning is critical, improvisation, adaptability, and flexibility are just as important for getting good photos or video. One of the most wonderful things about wildlife photography is that you never really know what the universe is going to offer. And you might find the species or behavior that you were hoping for on a given day, but you might not and instead see some other animal doing something completely unique and different. The same is true of the weather. You might expect a certain set of conditions only to find something different. There is something magical in any condition or situation, so the second most important thing after the well-being of the animal is making the most of what’s in front of me.

Confession three: Whoever you are, you bring that with you into the field. I may not pack them in my backpack, but my gifts and my struggles are with me every time I head out. The positive and the negative. My kindness, my sensitivity, my sense of humor, my pet peeve, my insecurities, my grief. They impact me and the way I conduct myself. They affect how I interact with other people as well as wild lives, which is why after focusing on the well-being of the animal and adapting to whatever the universe gives me, I try to meet all of it with love. Because when I am filled with love for the subject in front of me, that love emanates from my photograph. A skilled but indifferent photographer can have all of the settings right and capture a technically “perfect“ image, but it will lack soul. It will lack emotional connection for the viewer. Because our perspective as photographers shows up in the way we photograph any subject, and the “feeling” in any image is as much about what we leave out as it is about what we include. Which means photographing them from a place of deep respect, empathy, and gratitude. When I am with wildlife, I spend a tremendous amount of time and energy thinking about my impact, my position, and minimizing noise, movement and anything that would disturb the animal.

And, confession three-and-a-half. Even with the best of intentions and mindful actions, sometimes I still have a negative impact. We all make mistakes, and even doing my best, sometimes it happens despite my efforts. So I reflect on my time in the field and aim to improve my practices every next time I go out, as well as keeping my heart open.

These principles guide my own photography as a professional, but I think are just as relevant for amateur photographers and for anyone who spends time in the wild whether photographing, bird watching, hiking, etc. If we accept that our presence is a disturbance to any ecosystem, then we can serve it best by focusing on the wildlife, being flexible, and meeting it with respect and love.