Angry Angel

The title to this post sounds like a bad name of an 80’s metal band but it’s also the first thing I thought of when I saw this image glowing on my computer screen as I downloaded my final series of images from Alaska’s Arctic. I was exploring a few miles south of Deadhorse when I saw a white speck on the tundra ahead. Through my binoculars the speck materialized into this Long-tailed Jaeger. I approached slowly, making a few images, moving closer, trying not disturb the bird as she tended a nearby nest. She was quite patient and accepting of me, that is, until I stood upright to leave. And by god, she did not like that. Not one little bit. I took a moment to slap on a wide-angle lens then, as I retreated, I fired off a hundred shots often without even looking through the view-finder. She, shortly joined by her mate, dive-bombed me until I was what they considered a safe distance from the nest, about 100 feet. Then like nothing had happened between us, the female dropped back onto her nest, and the male settled back onto a tussock a hundred meters away. Their aggressive defense lasted no more than a minute or two, but I could easily see how these two gull-sized birds could drive away virtually any predator who made the mistake of approaching too close to their precious eggs.

I’ll post a few more from this series at a later time. Somehow, in the mess of blurry shots I got a few keepers.

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