Hola Senor y Senora HOLA

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Hola Senor y Senora HOLA

Construction escorts are arguably about as exciting as watching cheese mold, but today I had some company -- a pair of Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris). The male stood watch and occasionally helped as the female scurried about collect material for their nest. On a couple of occasions the female walked right up to my truck!

A little explanation about the term "HOLA". This is the four letter alpha code given by bird banders to identify the species HOrned LArk, it's also what the biologist and I use for short-hand.
If you're curious to learn more of these codes you can go here:
USGS Bird Banding Laboratory
you may find this one a little more user friendly here.

female Horned Lark

male Horned Lark

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The Airport Environment

Words like, "ecosystem" and "biodiversity" aren't exactly things that one would associate with airports, but the truth is they are very attractive areas for wildlife. Airports tend to have vast open areas of grass, intermittent areas of little to no direct contact with humans, and because of both of those factors they are capable of supporting a good deal of wildlife. My airport alone has over 340 acres of grassland.
My goal here is to open your eyes to the nature, both fauna and flora but mostly fauna, that your plane is taxing past. Some of which is small and relatively insignificant in terms of affecting the safety of your flight, while others are much more serious -- all of them are beautiful. It is my charge and the charge of others at airports all across the country to attempt to mitigate this hazard when it poses a potential threat to your flight. Welcome to the nature I witness everyday. Welcome to The Wild Airport.

The Camera

Nikon D3200, with a AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200mm (as of 28JUL17, I've upgraded to a 18-300mm)

And honestly that's about as technical as I get. I've never taken a photography class; I have a tripod (at home) that I've never used for this stuff; and my photography is really just glorified snap shot shooting. It all boils down to the nature of my work. My job is not to take pictures all day. I do not get to spent hours setting up for the ideal shot. I operate on dumb luck and taking several quick photos that sometime later (sometimes days later) I end up editing in Google Picasa.
The only other thing that I've got going for me is that my camera is pretty much always with me, in the same way a camera was by my dad's side through much of his time in the war in Vietnam. I use it as a tool to analyze, capture, and report with. It also keeps me mentally engaged during long boring assignments by causing me to think of different angles and just how a composure looks through the lens.

TWA | The Wild Airport

Tuesday, June 2, 2015