Twenty-five people entered the recent Redwood Region Audubon Society Photo Contest.
“Applicants submitted work in several categories, including specific species or mixed species combinations, species whose native language names were included, and even the tricky task of finding all local family members of nuthatches,” said one of the contest judges, photographer Ann Constantino. .
“The judging process demonstrated how deeply local residents appreciate birds and nature,†she said. “All photos, regardless of technical quality, photographic difficulty or artistic merit, beautifully display moments of human-bird connection, conveyed within a frozen time frame through which that sense of connection radiates.
“These moments of bird interaction were captured in photographic form, creating a true celebration of our avian friends and our connection to them,” Constantino said.
She added: “We see this as a celebration rather than a competition and realize there were several big shots that weren’t official ‘winners’. So keep it up and remember that you can submit a photo or image, along with some background paragraphs, to The Sandpiper editor, [email protected], any time of the year.
Go to www.rras.org to see a slideshow of the entries.
The winners in different categories were:
The four first
• Mary Ann Machi — Wood Duckling, Sequoia Park Duck Pond, Eureka
• Jeff Todoroff – flying northern pygmy owl, Warren Creek Road in Arcata
• Jeff Jacobsen – Great Horned Owl, North Spit Cypress, Arcata
• Rob Fowler — common ravens, V Street Loop, Arcata Bottoms
Several non-avian wildlife species pictured
• Larry Jordan — Green Heron with Frog, Lema Ranch’s Hidden Pond, Redding
Several species of birds pictured
• Dana Utman — snowy egret and greater yellowlegs, Arcata Marsh
Native American language
• Connie Pearson — cedar waxwing, Horsethief Canyon Park, San Dimas. The entry included the following: “In the native land of Tongva – Tongva (a Uto-Aztecan language from Southern California) is a (re)awakening language. There is no known word for “cedar waxwing”. The Tongva word for ‘bird’ is ‘chi’iiy’.
three nuthatches
• Lyndie Chiou — white-breasted nuthatch on Ohlone Lands, Alameda Creek in Union City; pygmy nuthatch in Ohlone Land, Berkeley; Red-breasted Nuthatch on Ohlone Land, Gomes Park, Fremont
Clark’s Nutcracker
• Gary Bloomfield — American Nutcracker, feeding on whitebark pine, Crater Lake, Oregon
brown vines
• Jeff Todoroff — brown vine, McKinleyville
The biggest photo bomb
• John Stuart – Northern Flicker surveying Pileated Woodpecker, Arcata
rarest bird
• Willie Hall — Hudson Barge, Elk Creek, Crescent City Harbor
Youth
• Fox Flores, 11 — great egret, Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge
Finalist
• A tie between Kurt Angersbach – sanderlings, Trinidad, and Gary Bloomfield – American white pelicans, Rocky Point, Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon
Honorable Mentions
• Bald Eagle; more green-winged teal by Sarah Hobart
• Steller’s jay; plus Chris Hansen’s Chestnut-backed Chickadee, in Willits
• Lee Rusconi’s Gadwall
• Zsazsa Dallenbach’s White-crowned Sparrow (juvenile).
• Spotted Towhee by Jeremy Cashen, Santa Cruz Island, Channel Islands National Park
• Wood duck = bitwak daday’ in soulatluk, the wiyot language; plus marsh wren = jush, in Soulatluk, by Mark Larson. Soulatluk words courtesy of Wiyot Tribe
• Red Crossbill, female, by Lucinda Adamson
• Nancy Spruance marbled godwits
• Red-tailed Hawk, Smith River, by Michael A. Sommer.
