Tear Sheets :: Photo Of The Day and Natural History Commentary

Yesterday a copy of the new book, The Coronados Islands, Their History and Environment (Las Islas Coronados, una Historia y un Entorno Natural) arrived in our mailbox. It is very well done, the best treatment of the Coronado Islands (Las Islas Coronados) I have yet seen. Although I was contacted by the editors of the book for images related to the ecology and animal life at the Coronado Islands a couple of years ago, yesterday was the first time I had a chance to actually see the publication, which is printed in both Spanish and English with high quality printing and binding.

The book has some history. In 2003, Chevron proposed installing a $650 million liquified natural gas receiving terminal near the Coronado Islands, which are only about 8.5 miles from the Tijuana coast and just a 1-2 hour boat ride from San Diego. The book is derived from a large body of data that was collected during the permit process and includes interesting material about the history and ecology of the islands along with many photographs. Chevron received approval for the project but ultimately withdrew for economic reasons. Fortunately, the book was still produced and is now a publicly accessible distillation of all that research data. It is being distributed at no cost to many educational institutions in Mexico.

Check out the cover. The top photo showing all three islands was made by Alfonso Caraveo Castro, who contributed most of the images in the book. The middle photo, of fishes swimming in a kelp forest, and bottom photo, of a huge blue whale raising its fluke out of the water before diving, are mine.

This year’s edition of the Tidelines calendar is especially nice because one of our photos appears on the cover (duh). Can you guess where it was shot? Hint: it rhymes with “ledge” and lots of bones are broken there. Order your Tidelines calendar now so you too can time all your ocean functions to take maximum advantage of the tide. By the way, a big swell arrives tomorrow, if you have a Tidelines calendar on your wall you’ll know when to go.

Surfline picked up my shot of Carson Smith getting barreled at Ponto for their latest slide show about the swell that hit last week.

Carson Smith, Ponto, South Carlsbad, morning surf. Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA. Image: 17828   Location: Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA

BBC Wildlife is the finest wildlife magazine in the UK and Europe, and one in which I have enjoyed seeing my images occasionally appear. The November 2006 issue has a nice article about blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), authored by Anna McKibbin, leading with a two-page spread of a shot I took some years ago while flying over the ocean in a small plane.

See also:

blue whale photos, Balaenoptera musculus photos, blue whale aerial photos.

Surfline picked up a shot of mine for today’s ROCKTOBER slideshow, check this page out.

Breaking wave, Ponto, South Carlsbad. Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA. Image: 17679   Location: Ponto, Carlsbad, California, USA

A “nurse log” is a tree that has fallen and, in the process of decay and rotting away, provides nutrients and a substrate for other plants, including seedling trees, to root and grow. Eventually these plants overwhelm the nurse log which rots away and is completely replaced by the new growth. This photo of a nurse log in Olympic National Park, near Sol Duc Falls, was recently selected for use in a permanent exhibit at the Oregon Zoo to illustrate Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest natural history.

One of our redwood tree photos was used as reference for the redwood tree stamp appearing as part of the United States Postal Service’s new commemorative issue Wonders of America :: Land of Superlatives. Released on May 27th, 2006, this stamp pane features 40 natural and man-made wonders of the United States. These remarkable places, plants, animals, and structures were selected from every region of the country. The stamp art is by Lonnie Busch, who illustrated the 50 GREETINGS FROM AMERICA stamps in 2002. On the front of each stamp, in large letters, are words that describe the superlative nature of a particular place or thing. Smaller type gives the name or location of the featured wonder. Text on the back of each stamp provides relevant statistics and other interesting information.

Our photograph of an ocean sunfish alongside drift kelp appeared on the June 2003 cover of Sport Diver magazine:

Keywords: Mola mola, ocean sunfish photos.

Our photograph of expert freediver, spearfisherman, long range boat captain and all-around-good-guy Chris Thompson was taken at Guadalupe Island in July 2001 shortly after he speared his ginormous yellowfin tuna (not his first mind you). It then appeared on the Summer 2002 cover of the International Freediving and Spearfishing News:

Still another academic journal cover – too bad these guys don’t pay the big bucks.

Our photograph of a scalloped hammerhead shark appeared on the June 2005 cover of the Journal of Morphology, to accompany Olfactory Morphology of Carcharhinid and Sphyrnid Sharks: Does the Cephalofoil Confer a Sensory Advantage? (Kajiura, Forni and Summers):

Here’s another “scientific journal” cover, we’ve had a few of these in the last three years. Our photograph of schooling jacks in the Sea of Cortez appeared on the cover of the January 2006 issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences to accompany The principles of collective animal behavior (Sumpter):

Our photograph of a schooling jacks in the Sea of Cortez appeared on the cover of Baja California to the Bering Sea, a report on marine priority conservation areas issued by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America and the Marine Conservation Biology Institute (Morgan, Maxwell, Tsao, Wilkinson and Etnoyer):

Our photograph of a neonate gray whale calf underwater near the Monterey Peninsula appeared on the Summer 2002 cover of the All Animals magazine, the official publication of the Humane Society of the United States:

In addition to the cover of Nature a few years ago, we’ve had interest from other scientific and peer-reviewed journals recently. Our photograph of a scalloped hammerhead shark appeared on the October 2005 cover of Ecology Letters, to accompany Direct and indirect fishery effects on small coastal elasmobranchs in the northern Gulf of Mexico (Shepherd and Myers):

Our photograph of a gray whale blowing as it surfaces along the Big Sur coast appeared on the cover of the Where magazine:

Finally, an authoritative book has been published about Guadalupe Island, our favorite eastern Pacific island and one of Mexico’s finest ecological wonders. Published in December 2005 by Instituto Nacional de Ecologia (INE-SEMARNAT) and compiled by editors Karina Santos del Prado and Eduardo Peters, Isla Guadalupe, Restauracion Y Conservacion describes the geology, flora and fauna of this unique island. Particular attention is paid to the spectacular geology with satellite photos and topographic maps, descriptions of the bird species with photographs from atop Afuera and Adentro islands, and coverage of the Guadalupe fur seals, elephant seals and great white sharks. We are proud to have provided many of the images appearing in the book including the cover. An English-language edition is planned for later this year.

Wildlife of Guadalupe Island
Underwater Guadalupe Island
Above water coastline and geology of Guadalupe Island
Guadalupe Island great white sharks and Carcharodon carcharias
Guadalupe fur seals and Arctocephalus townsendi
Our complete collection of still photographs at Guadalupe Island

This photo of schooling jack mackerel, shot at Guadalupe Island, Mexico in 2004, graced the cover of Nature, one of the premiere scientific journals in the world, on February 3, 2005 to accompany Effective leadership and decision-making in animal groups on the move (Couzin, Krause, Franks and Levin):