The birds were photobombing left and right Saturday afternoon in Hoquiam, Wash.
I had a rare chance that day to take a photowalk. I've been working nights at a seafood processing plant about an hour away. Every day I have to call in around 3 p.m. to see if there is work for that night; sometimes the hotline doesn't get updated till after 4 p.m., and it gets dark soon after. At any rate, I found out close to 3 that there wasn't work; it was a gorgeous day; and I seized my opportunity.
I headed down to the bay of Grays Harbor, intending to take some water shots. As I walked through town, though, the steeple of the Saron Lutheran Church caught my eye.
The first bird popped up when I stepped back for a broader view. I think it's a pigeon; I didn't even see it until the moment I snapped the pic.
When I got to the bay, I noticed a ship docked at the port terminal. The clouds, aside from casting a nice backdrop, were creating moving shadows and spotlights across the landscape. I rushed down to the riprap to set up the tripod; I wanted to see if I could catch the ship with the sun on it.
The birds showed up there too. First a seagull, just a dot on the water, which I didn't notice until editing.
And then, the great blue heron.
The first pic of the heron could be called a photobomb, though I did notice him seconds before he entered the frame. The second pic was more deliberate. In both, you can see a cloud of dust wafting over the ship; they were loading something dry onto it. I'm guessing either grain or wood chips. That terminal was developed for agricultural products, but if you walk by on the road, there's always a gigantic pile of wood chips waiting to be loaded.
One bird that popped up during the shoot drew my attention away from the ship. I'm not sure what kind of bird this is; it looks like a kind of loon. It was swimming away from me toward the island in the bay.
Following the loon led me to the reflections on the water.
After the loon and the reflections, I took a few more shots of the ship, then reached a point where it just felt like time to go. I'm not sure why. And I wonder if I misinterpreted my gut: as soon as I had climbed up the riprap to the gravel drive that runs along the embankment, two herons skimmed out over the water toward the island. It would have been an awesome photo. But I had already packed the camera away.
I guess we'll leave the final image of my photowalk that day to the imagination.
Ship Notes
The ship featured in this post is the Luzon.
According to VesselFinder, the Luzon was built in 2010 and sails under a Liberian flag. It left Grays Harbor early Sunday morning and is scheduled to arrive in the Philippines on December 21.