A TERN FOR THE BETTER

Michael Perkins

Sep 6

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1:45pm, August 24, 2023

By MICHAEL PERKINS

BIRDWATCHING AND PHOTOGRAPHY FORM A PERFECT NATURAL SYMBIOSIS, the kind of interlocking of passions that's been a particularly satisfying bond between my wife Marian and me. The simple division of labor involved (she spots 'em, I snap 'em) allows us both to approach the task from our respective strengths, overlapping in a shared purpose that teaches both of us about looking and waiting. Often, events out in the wild unfold slowly, almost imperceptibly so. And then there are days when change comes in like a sudden surge of surf.

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1:47 pm, August 24, 2023

These images come from a recent walk along the stretch of oceanfront near the confluence of the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Clara River, which meet in an estuary just downwind from the busier beaches of the Channel Islands National Park in Ventura, California. It requires about a quarter of a mile's walk away from the madding crowd, but local birders know the payoffs are real. Our first glimpse of the enormous rock shelf situated right next to the tidal line (top) showed it stark and empty, but, just two minutes later, a massive flock of terns was holding a reunion from end to end of the crag (above). Even in a static picture, the transition was/is stunning.

Much of birdwatching is an exercise in patience, with many days of hiking and neck-craning yielding next to nothing aside from a decent walk. Thankfully, there are also days when Nature comes bounding into view with a suddenness that takes your breath away. You see the rhythms of the world, cycles that are rooted in millennia of repetition, drumbeats of life that predate you and will continue after you as if you were never here. The humility forced on one when faced with the inexorable ebb and flow of Life on the planet eventually informs everything else you do, and certainly shapes your observational skills. It's a forced cooldown, as well as the greatest display of existence asserting itself, striving to compete, to adapt, to thrive, skills which would be well emulated by anyone aspiring to art.