Category Archives: Pacific Northwest

Ride the White Swan (Or Great Blue Heron)

In some previous posts I have discussed how aggressive the red-winged blackbirds can be towards the great blue herons. The herons are quite happy to eat the chicks of the blackbirds, so the aggression is justified. One of the herons was flying in my direction when a blackbird swooped down at it. It came in from above and behind and started to attack the heron. I got a sequence of shots as this evolved and my favorite is one where it actually looks like the blackbird is riding the heron. If only it had some reins!

Dropping The Shutter Speed For Fun

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One weekend, I was at Boeing Field awaiting something interesting. There was the regular traffic of business jets and, since they were pretty standard fair and the light wasn’t great anyway, I figured I would play with dropping the shutter speed super low. The R3 is great for this because I can select a frame rate of 30fps if I want. When shooting with silly shutter speeds, really high frame rates increase the chance that I might get something that isn’t terrible. Technology overcomes lack of talent!

I was dropping down to 1/50^th or 1/60^th of a second for some of the arrivals. I was using a polarizer to take out a load of light to allow such low shutter speeds on a sunny afternoon. It also didn’t hurt to reduce the glare with the sun so strong. Most shots were worthless but there were a few that came out okay. Full size there were more acceptable ones but, since I was experimenting, I focused on the ones that were really sharp. Such low shutter speeds do result in parallax issues which is not ideal, so I tend to look for the sharpness to be on the front fuselage unless the plane is going well away from me. There were some 737s on test too, so I played with the same techniques for them as well. Maybe I shall go even lower at some point.

Are Eagles Compensation for Foxes

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My visit to Cattle Point in search of foxes had me trekking along the cliff tops hoping to spot some creatures on the prowl. I met a local couple that suggested they normally saw foxes further along the coast and so I headed that way. As I kept moving, I did get some wildlife encounters but it was with bald eagles rather than foxes. They were soaring along the cliff tops using the updrafts. At one point, one popped up over the edge close to me and stared at me briefly before gliding on. I was too slow to pick up the camera and instead watched it fly by. I did catch some of its compatriots later in my walk, though. If I’m not getting foxes, eagles are okay but I can get them at home!

Xáat Kwáani

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The repainting of the Salmon Thirty Salmon jet caught a lot of attention and was the subject of a previous post. The jet was not destined to be in standard Alaska Airliners colors, though. Instead, it went to be painted in a special livery that has a salmon connection. This time it is adopting a native theme to the painting. The name is Xáat Kwáani which means Salmon People. It was unveiled in an event in Anchorage and made a couple of flights within Alaska before coming home to Seattle. It arrived on a Friday evening so plenty of people were out after work to catch it landing. I’m sure I’ll see it again plenty of times but it was nice to get it on a lovely evening.

Q400s Into the Horizon Sunset

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The Alaska Airlines fleet is undergoing a transformation. Part of that was the removal of the Q400 from Horizon’s fleet with the Embraers becoming their only platform. Suddenly getting shots of the aircraft seemed a lot more interesting. I did manage to get the retro livery special one more time as it took off one evening. As it headed into the sunset, it seemed far too on the nose for their retirement. A few weeks later, they were gone.

Seabus

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While in Vancouver in November, we made a trip to North Van to see some friends. That meant a trip on the Seabus. The tricky thing about getting images of the Seabus is that you can’t really do anything if you are traveling on it. The dock is enclosed and the views are restricted so you don’t really have any options (or at least I haven’t worked out what they might be). However, I did go to the heliport which is very close by and this does provide a better view of the comings and goings of these ferries.

It’s not the most elegant of vessels but it does the job effectively. Back and forth without turning since it is a bi-directional vessel. It’s all about shuttling across the harbor as efficiently as possible. I did also shoot some video of it but it is safe to say that there is nothing terribly dynamic about it that makes for an exciting video!

Different Angles on Sentimental Journey

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A jump back to the visit of Sentimental Journey last year. Because she was here for a while, I was able to shoot from a variety of locations to try and get some different shots of her. The weather played ball while she was in Seattle unlike the conditions at Arlington the following week. It was fun to try some different angles on the same plane since I had got the initial shots I wanted.

How Many Coots Do You Need to Stay Safe?

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We went through a phase at Juanita Bay when the number of coots really rocketed. They were a popular source of food for the local eagles, but they had to work for it. The coots were gathered in large groups on the water and the eagles would do their best to get one isolated so that they could pick it off. As they got close, the flocks of coots would get startled and would start flying around to evade the eagles. Watching this action from a distance was fascinating as this large number of birds tried to move as one to protect themselves. Not a time for being independent!

Better Timing With This Ex-LATAM Delta A350

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The movement of the ex-LATAM Airbus A350s that Delta has picked up on their way to Singapore via Seattle got me out once before. The jet was arriving after dark but I gave it a go anyway. The next one to make the move from California to Singapore came through at a more convenient time for me being both daylight and also when I wasn’t at work! The weather was not perfect but the sun did pop out which made for some reasonable lighting and it was a chance to catch a jet in LATAM colors which I probably won’t get very often.

Breeze Comes to Town (But Not With the A220 Yet)

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Breeze is an airline that was recently formed by the guy that started up JetBlue. It has an initial east coast focus but is supposed to gradually expand west. We do not have scheduled service yet but they seem to also undertake charter operations. When the airline was announced, it was supposed to use Airbus A220s. I guess the pandemic made aircraft availability better and they picked up a bunch of Embraer E190s. The A220s have started to come online but the Embraers are currently the big part of the fleet.

One of them was making a trip to Boeing Field. Not sure why it was coming but I figured this was worth a look. I tracked the jet as it lined up for the approach but I hadn’t heard it call in. At some point, I heard the tower call to ask if they were on frequency and no response. At this point, it was pretty close in. I guess, without a clearance, they decided to go around. They climbed out over the field. A side effect of this was to cause a Delta 737 that was on approach to SEA to have to also go missed as the Embraer was conflicting with its flight path. I suspect they were a touch annoyed.

The Embraer then was vectored around for a second approach. On this one, everything seemed to be a lot more normal. I heard them call up a decent distance out and they were cleared to land which they did without incident. The sky blue livery is quite catching and I would like to see one of the A220s at some point soon. I wonder whether we will get service out here at some point?