How to Get on the Endangered Species List: Lessons in Species Stupidity**+ *

The caption says everything about this photo except the species of

bird. I have some inkling, but am not completely sure and welcome

you to post the name of this particular western shorebird. Your

ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help improve my

photography! Thanks! Enjoy! John

I was photographing in a slough, which flows beneath the roadway on which this bird is standing, though culverts, with tidal flow being trapped and often 50 shorebirds waiting for small fish to move through the culverts with the tides -- all eager to scoop up the small fish for a tasty meal.

 

This little guy, however, was somewhat different.

 

Instead of feeding or competing for food, he hopped atop a protective railing, which the other birds never sat on, then jumped smack into the middle of the roadway which served a major state park next to busy California Highway 1, background, apparently oblivious to any danger of traffic and stayed there for a long time, long enough for me to change lens and fire off about 30 shots of him, as I tried for just the right juxtaposition of him with the sign AND moving traffic in the background, before he eventually flew off when a truck came along (but he was even slow in flying off then).

 

Maybe some species deserve to be endangered . . . .

 

But again, maybe his isn't. Can you name it?

 

John (Crosley)

A striking capture John and good story. In defence of the bird, it is a wild thing that may not recognise the distinction between natural and man-made. Standing on a road is therefore not a stupid act. A driver who smears the bird into the tarmac because he/she can't be bothered to slow down and swerve...now, that's stupidity for you....glad you stopped to record the scene - trust you didn't reverse over it on your way out ;-)

There were 50 to 75 other birds nearby and not one of them gave an inkling of interest in sitting or standing in the middle of the tarmac, though all were shorebirds/waterbirds like this little fella such as pelicans, egrets (great, blue, and snowy), plover, and so forth.

 

They were simply more skittish than he, and seemed to have understood that traffic passing was not the place they should have been.

 

Not this little guy though.

 

He probably would walk right up to a fox to see if the fox's fur were 'soft' and wonder why he was being eaten.

 

(See my B&W photos of a 'birder' photographing the 'snowy plover', a certified endangered species, and my comments thereunder, and others' also about where it (and its cousins) nest and their problems with foxes and you may see the relevancy of this comment).

 

FYI, even cats know enough not to walk in the center of a road, although somehow dogs do not -- are cats just smarter, or more wary? -- more wary I think, as I think dogs are pretty darn smart, at least as I value smartness.

 

Anyway, what species of waterbird/shorebird is this?

 

Oh, and Hugo, I was then a pedestrian, and the bird was long gone when I left, otherwise it might have walked in front of my car when finally I drove out, after sundown.

 

John (Crosley)

Technically, Hugo, your crop is far superior and from a compositional standpoint, it is far better than mine.

 

If I were looking for compositional superiority, I certainly would have considered it.

 

Even in the camera, I would have cropped differently.

 

However, I wanted to emphasize that the bird was 'surrounded' by asphalt.

 

To do so required showing that there was considerable asphalt on all sides of the bird, left, right, top and bottom.

 

Otherwise, I would have cropped bottom and left, to make a diagonal viewing and make the eye work from lower left to upper right as that is technically 'better'.

 

However, such a crop results in a deficient 'story'; it defeats the 'verifiability by the viewer' of the truth of the assertion of the 'story' proposed.

 

In other words, one cannot tell, by looking at your proposed crop, that the assertion that the bird is 'stupid' that the photo really illustrates that, as he could indeed be standing at the side of the road, or on a curb or just off a curb or shoulder at the left or left bottom if the road curved.

 

So, you can see that there is a problem with the crop that stems from CONTENT rather than COMPOSITIONAL EXCELLENCE, and sometimes one has to make non aesthetic choices.

 

This is one instance where the 'assertion of the photo' required a less aesthetic crop.

 

I hope you understand.

 

Your aesthetic instincts are excellent; your storytelling ones fell a trifle short on shy I did my crop, but your efforts are excellent and I look forward to more suggestions by you; I have enjoyed your suggestions as pretty well thought out and engaging.

 

;~))

 

John (Crosley)

I enjoyed your aesthetics vs story comment and agree that your original version tells more...

Considering the current rate of global climate change, I now see another interpretation of your story. The lesson in species stupidity here actually comes from the good old Homo Sapiens in the red car, who continues to propel her/himself around by coughing huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Now that's stupidity for you.... ;-) Best wishes Hugo

There are those who decry the loss of the so-called 'electric car' who think they can just 'plug in' their science fiction car at night and drive all day the next day and it's practically free and entirely non-polluting.

 

Hence the movie 'Whole Stole the Electric Car?' or some such title inferring some gigantic conspiracy.

 

In fact, some day there may be hydrogen powered cars, but not soon in the United States.

 

Why?

 

No source of cheap hydrogen, let alone an infrastructure to handle it safely.

 

Once safety problems appear to be worked out for that most dangerous of all fuels, there still is the problem of making it -- separating the hydrogen from the oxygen in water, and that requires enormous amounts of power.

 

That power can only come either from burning fossil fuels or other sources of energy, and the only PRACTICAL source is nuclear energy, as so-called renewable sources (hydro, solar, wind, are limited and unreliable or mostly already employed e.g. hydro and wind will degrade the environment -- ever 'hear' a windmill turning or wonder why they cut birds to pieces?)

 

Nuclear detractors think a nuclear plant is gonna spread death, but burning coal releases hundreds of millions of TONS of radioactive thorium, vanadium, uranium and other radioactive minerals in to the air every year while nuclear plants almost never release any and the nuclear death count is almost zero and solely a result of human error coupled with antiquated reactor design (Chernobyl was a bad, antiquated reactor design, not ever used in the West).

 

In France, which is exporting nuclear power to Germany, they are making hydrogen from their nuclear power plant excess capacity at night -- France is energy self-sufficient. Them Frenchies make more than 'freedom fries'.

 

They're way ahead of us Yankees, who're all spooked by a Jane Fonda movie from 20 or so years ago, which did serve a good purpose and caused us to be very careful (the good purpose) but also caused us to freeze in our tracks while time went by and we became dependent on dictators and the Middle East and unstable regimes with unstable rulers for much of our (and the world's) energy.

 

The need for hydrocarbons will not go away, but it can considerably be diminished if this nation will resume making reactors which we already make designs for building in the rest of the world. We just need to make them here and avail ourself of their energy.

 

Then we can be CO2 free.

 

We'll just have water for waste when that hydrogen combines with oxygen.

 

Now that's non-polluting.

 

And if you look at the death toll in the West from nuclear power, please write in your next comment all the names of those who've died.

 

And if you put any names at all in your comment, please enumerate all those who died in California in car accidents over Labor Day.

 

And the number of all those who will die of disease and/or defects defects from all that radioactive thorium, vanadium, iodine, uranium, etc. thrown into the air from coal-burning power plants which throw those radioactive elements into the skies, and which circle the world and fall on all the continents (We get a lot of China's from here at my house on the U.S. Pacific Coast through to the U.S. Atlantic Coast and beyond to Europe.).

 

;~))

 

John (Crosley)