Nature Photography Archives

A Lightness of Being

By Simone Lipscomb | July 21, 2013

Sunday mornings, prior to sunrise, find me traversing an empty beach lot to the dune line. A short climb over ever-growing dunes and a quick walk across flat, sugar-white sand beach and voila! Wrack line. My target for the 1.5 mile search eastward.

I walk toward the rising sun. I’m looking for sea turtle tracks but this time of solitude at sunrise gives me space to be with the ocean, to open myself to the day and what life presents. Sounds great, right?

Today like most all other days I opted to carry my heavy camera, heavy super-wide angle lens and my carbon fiber tripod…not so heavy but after 3 miles it all starts to feel rather burdensome. I can’t help it though. Try as I might to leave the sturdy gear at home, the artist in me wants to see dawn through my lens. The environmentalist in me wants to pick up trash on the walk back. So a heavy trash day, like today, leaves me exhausted.

As I trudged back west picking up trash, the wind was blowing strongly against me. Lots of plastic in various forms littered the beach and so I was constantly bending over while trying to keep tripod and camera cases from falling off my tired shoulders. It was very frustrating….the trash, the soft sand and the heavy gear. I felt so weighed down.

Truthfully though, all of the stuff I was carrying was light compared to the inner burdens that were weighing me down. I struggled with my anger over trashy humans who throw garbage off of fishing boats, with tourists who leave plastic bottles, plastic caps, fireworks, plastic bags, and cigarette butts behind. After a mile and a half of gathering up the wastes humans left behind I felt weighed down with anger, frustration, feelings of hopelessness for our collective future and the health of our planet. And any other heavy emotion lingering about seems to pop up when I am tired. So hello my little friends….good to see you remember me. (Not!) Weary walking, this day. Very weary walking.

I was so exhausted toward the end of my walk I tried to push past trash rather than stop and put it in the already-heavy bag. But I couldn’t. I wanted to weep with fatigue and dehydration yet my love for the planet strengthened me to stop and collect the bits of garbage. I had to deal with it. I don’t want to do this! I’m tired, I silently whined. I wondered how long it would take the ghost crabs and other scavengers to pick my bones clean if I collapsed. And yes, I have a vivid imagination with a flair for the dramatic. Don’t artists always suffer for their work?

In spiritual studies, which are really studies in healing inner wounds, psychic debris and ego-driven living so our highest self can shine forth, I have sometimes wished for amnesia. Once a personality flaw is unearthed and brought to consciousness it won’t go away or get fixed by ignoring it. I thought of this as I picked up plastic garbage from the beach. Try as I might to walk past it I just couldn’t. My commitment to wildlife is to pick up this 1.5 mile stretch of beach every Sunday morning. Like my commitment to personal growth and healing leads me to keep working on myself no matter how tired or weighed down I feel. Oh, happy day. Right?

When I reached my car the feeling of letting everything go was amazing. The struggle had been great this day. Strong wind, soft sand, lots of trash…heavy gear. But the payoff…oh, the payoff. Feeling my heart and mind connect through my art. Knowing that the trash I collected will not harm innocent creatures…hoping that something I do will make a positive difference for the planet…this and singing to the sea gave me an incredible lightness of being.

The struggles? I still think it’s all worth it. Just look at this beautiful planet. Look at the sea!! And if you dare, look into my ever-lightening heart.

Welcome to the World Baby Turtles

By Simone Lipscomb | July 19, 2013

It was a glorious afternoon. I arrived at the nest we had been watching at 4.30pm and listened with the stethoscope. One 20 second cascade of sand was heard with some crawling sounds. Over an hour later…same. And on it went for hours. Checking only once an hour and thinking the turtles were resting…but that moon might just enliven them….a girl can hope, right?

In the meanwhile one of our team members refined the trench two had dug the day before. The trench helps the turtles from wandering to porch lights, condo lights and acts as a guide for their long crawl to the beach…which is especially long since the beaches were renourished, refurbished…whatever they call it. It is a very long crawl for such tiny tots. In crowded, light-polluted areas it gives the newborns their best chance at making it to open water.

The especially loooong crawl to the water....the trench helps with the light pollution experienced on our beaches. — The especially loooong crawl to the water….the trench helps with the light pollution experienced on our beaches.

Even though my shift was officially over at 9pm I had an intuitive hunch to stay around a while. At 10pm one of our folks checked and heard very active babies. They had awakened and were busy crawling up in their nest. When I last listened at 11pm it was a constant cascade of sand…so much so that I couldn’t believe we had not had some change in the surface. Just after listening I looked and saw a very small lip of sand had formed…no greater than 1.5 inches on one side of the nest. When a friend and fellow turtle-lover joined us from her home on the beach I asked her to re-check the nest at 11.20pm. In just a few moments she was excitedly saying….hurry!! They are coming!!

Because the sand was perfectly dry and fluffy, there wasn’t a big crater until they boiled. And boil they did…..delightful loggerhead hatchlings.

I squatted just outside the nest and watched as these little darlings used the steep incline as a slide. It was perfectly beautiful, perfectly precious. I sang Happy Birthday, Happy Trails and wished them well….my usual softly-delivered welcome-to-the-world-angels speech.

Hatchling from 2012. We cannot use any lights/flashes, etc when a hatching is happening. This one was from an excavation early evening last year.

While other humans were in front of TV’s or in bars or perhaps doing some job they hate in a place they like less, a sacred gift was bestowed on all who braved the late hour to witness one of nature’s miracles. I would not trade those hours for anything I know.

During the middle of the hatching, when there was a momentary lull in the action, I checked the nest and one baby was very still under a lip of sand. After all the others had vacated and were happily (hopefully) swimming in the sea, I kept tabs on the sleepy baby. A cascade here and there as well as crawling sounds were still happening and soon another baby slid down the sand slide to begin her march to the beach. There was one active baby that ‘swam’ up in the sandy nest that actually crawled over to the resting sibling and nudged her awake. Then together they took their miraculous journey to the saltwater…the journey that reverberates with healing metaphors that offer wisdom to all who are open to the teachings.

Arriving home near 3am I found myself once again feeling in sync with nature, with the cycles of life and the hope that is always birthed with a sea turtle nest exploding into life.

Leaping

By Simone Lipscomb | July 16, 2013

I was tired and had already been in my car too long running errands earlier in the day but something pushed me out of my comfy chair in my peaceful home. I grabbed my tripod and camera and only one lens….the glorious little beastie, the Nikon 14-24 2.8.

There wasn’t a lot of color in the sky when I arrived at the beach but soft hues create gentle images so I played around under the pier and then headed east, away from condos and into undeveloped shoreline.

Maybe 500 yards from the pier I came upon a loon. Not a human dressed in black socks and sandals sporting a hawaiian shirt drinking beer and littering cans all over the beach…a real loon. The bird. Specifically a Common Loon.

She was sitting on the lip of the sand, just out of reach of the water. Loons cannot walk because their legs are so far back on their bodies. They are diving birds and spend most of their time in the water, only coming on land for nesting. (This particular one was a juvenile…which I’m still puzzling about since they typically don’t nest here but back to the story).

The bird was alert, appeared uninjured and was tolerant but wary when I slowly approached. There was no blood or indications of any problems except the obvious one–she was not in the water. She just anxiously looked at the water and then back at me. I understand that look of longing and could feel her desire to be back in her element.

It was almost dark and concerned that coyotes would make a meal out of the grounded bird, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. Nobody was available to come check on her. But heck, I thought, I used to be the state park naturalist here, I can help this bird. I worked with all kinds of birds here in the 80’s.

The beaks are very sharp but I didn’t want to handle the bird anyway. Like I used to teach scuba students, self-rescue is always best. So I spotted a large piece of styrofoam down the beach and retrieved it. It was very bright white and my loony friend had an intense dislike of it. So much so that as soon as I approached, even very slowly, she decided to make a break for the water…never mind that she really couldn’t walk. With a burst of energy she pushed herself toward an oncoming wave, shot out a trail of poop and was out past the breakers before I could understand what just happened. She rescued herself with a little coaching from me. My guess is that with the rough water she was swept onshore while fishing inside the sand bar.

The last time I saw her she was frolicking (really…I’m NOT kidding) out past the breakers and taking a much-needed saltwater bath.

I suppose we all need a little encouragement to go for what we really long for sometimes. When and why do we take action? My suspicion is the fear of staying stuck becomes greater than the fear of leaping.

To all those awaiting a Universal sign to leap…..maybe today is the day!

Message in a Bottle

By Simone Lipscomb | July 14, 2013

Perhaps the biggest and worst surprise of my life is that the relationship with a good man–with whom I thought I’d spend the rest of my life–dissolved…ended. I haven’t seen him in more than a year and the ghosts of who we were, when we were happy together, roam the corridors of my heart.

One of my strongest desires in this life is to have a life partner with whom to grow and play and with whom a strong bond of love will carry us through changes, trials and challenges. And yet….here I am with this heart full of love not knowing what to do with it. When a relationship ends, especially if it ends amicably, where does the love go?

It’s not like I sit around and whine and cry and gnash my teeth. Nothing like that. Life is good for me. I laugh, have fun, enjoy life. Yet I long for a partner–a spiritual, emotional, playful, fun-loving partner. So I’ve been diving deep within myself lately and doing the work on myself and asking, ever so gently, for this partnership to arrive…when the time is right.

Yesterday was spent painting my bedroom and bathroom a most beautiful, soothing color to brighten the center of my home. This soft color and lighter drapes give a fresh, open feel to my space. All day long I painted with the intention to let go of anything holding me back from being fully open to love flowing within my heart…within my being. Within my life. To dissolve all internal barriers that keep love from me. As I told my husband before we parted, “I’m not going out there looking for love. It will have to find me.”

This morning as I was walking the beach during my sea turtle nest patrol I saw a square bottle that had just washed onshore. As I walked to it I noticed paper inside. WOW! I thought, A real message in a bottle.

I stuck it in my pack and continued my walk. Savoring the mystery, waiting until the time was right to sit and open it, was my plan.

Breakfast with turtle friends at the beach, a drive back to the house and as I scurried to get a shower before meeting more friends in Fairhope, the bottle caught my attention. Oh! I forgot you, I said. I had a few minutes to spare so I sat with it.

I uncorked it and carefully began removing the contents. A sweet perfume filled the air. The first thing I unrolled was a Maya Angelou poem. Next came a Yin-Yang symbol with hearts in the swishes. Then a tiny photograph of a home on the beach. The final item was larger and quite tightly-rolled and stuffed into the bottle. I didn’t want to damage it so it took a bit of engineering but I finally got it out. It was a prayer–a beautiful prayer–that was obviously part of a wedding ceremony. Or life commitment ceremony.

As the beauty of the intention came into focus I thought back to a prayer I said at my altar just yesterday morning before staring my home transformation: When the time is right please bring my partner to me. And then I let it go after saying a BIG thank-you.

The strength of the couple’s love deeply touched me. Their message was to God and somehow at 5.45am this morning it was directed to me. And that was a God-thing, too. Anything could have been in the bottle….but this prayer, this lifting of hearts to Source was exquisite and sacred. And affirming.

The right man will arrive when the time is right. That came in loud and clear when the Universe sent me a message this morning….in a bottle no less. This treasure will serve as a reminder of great things yet to come. I am already deeply grateful.

Isn’t life amazing?

The Pause Between Breaths

By Simone Lipscomb | July 11, 2013

As I was driving back from a photography session of family portraits on the Ft Morgan peninsula, I noticed the sky was looking especially inviting. Hopeful that the Shell Banks area of Mobile Bay would provide a nice vantage point, I excitedly nudged the accelerator until I saw the pull-off.

Sky conspired with water to offer a most pleasant and relaxing half hour of nature’s fine beauty. In times like these I find myself relaxing into the present moment, open to receiving the gifts nature offers and I lose myself to photography…to connecting with the essence of water and sky and light through my camera.

The magic hours of sunrise and sunset often have bountiful blessings and such sweetness. These gifts are found when I take the time to stop, breathe and open myself to the moment.

Present moment….sacred moment. Holy moment. Beautiful moment…found in the silence and stillness between breaths.