AX7 - Fernwood

Detail with bird AX7

Shorebirds Confederation Bridge

Recently on a trip to Fernwood, I photographed some shorebirds roosting at high tide. There were mostly Ruddy-Turnstones, a few Sandpipers and some Bonaparte's gulls. Upon close inspection of the images to pick the best ones, I noticed that one of the Ruddy-Turnstones had a green tag on it's leg. So I did a quick web search on bird tags an came up with an email for a scientist with the Canadian Wildlife Service. She quickly responded and I sent her some images and she forwarded them to her counterpart in the US. He emailed me back with some detail on that bird :

FL(AX7) was banded on Reeds Beach, New Jersey, USA on 18-May-08 with federal band #1282-01166.


He also provided me a link to a new website that is a database to report and track sightings of tagged shorebirds. www.bandedbirds.org

March 2010 Update! the little guy was spotted in Bequia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines see the comments and map below

Tidespiral

This land art project was made in August of 2007 at the beach in front of my parents place in Fernwood, PEI on the Northumberland Strait. I have not shown this work before this as I wanted to present it in a way that illustrated the ephemeral, transitional nature of this piece.

Watching something I spent time gathering elements and creating being slowly consumed by the tide was a very much a spiritual experience for me. I did not see this as destruction but rather a transformation and a re-integration back to the sea and sand.



For the music, I layered portions of 3 pieces from the Touch the Sound Soundtrack.  a wonderful film btw

Eagle Eye

This image was made in the fall of '08 on the beach at Fernwood, PEI
I was photographing the kids and I happened to see this eagle landing on the beach ahead from the corner of my eye.
Naturally, the telephoto lens was not on my camera so I grabbed a couple of frames with what I had, (indeed, they were crap)
Then I fired the telephoto onto my camera and slowly walked toward the eagle taking photos every few steps. I guess
when I had gotten too close, it was time for my feathered friend to leave, that is the image you see here. I have no idea
what that lump of meat in it's talons is, it is not regognizable as a creature. I suspect it is a piece of something larger like a seal.