Wings + Wonder + Water

Birds of the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve

It’s through a delightful dose of serendipity that my book and I have landed in Focal Points Magazine. A handful of years ago I attended Open Show Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Center of Photography, back when it was a smallish space squeezed tight into the tactile, colorful texture of Wilcox Avenue in Hollywood. There were a few photographers doing presentations that evening, but none sparked my interest until the work of the last one, a guy named Joe. I still remember my inner thrill when his mystical shot of a great heron in silhouette, standing backlit in a saffron sea of mist and moodiness, came up on the screen.

I was simultaneously transfixed and transported. I was certain that a shot this magical had to have been taken in China or some distant location where these exquisite, sculptural birds and the otherworldly atmosphere shared the same time and spacecertainly somewhere unattainable without great expense and long days of travel. I waited as Joe described the shot. I waited to hear the exotic name of the far-away place that would confirm that I wouldn’t be able to get there anytime soon, if ever. Then he said it – The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve. What? That was definitely an unusual name, but it was also a familiar one, like the Sepulveda

Boulevard that cuts a long concrete gash through the area of Los Angeles very near to where I live. What...!? It’s where??

That fateful evening, I was introduced to Joe Doherty and the photographic fairyland so near to my home, which I was embarrassed to admit that I’d never heard of. And here I am, six years and countless photographs later, with a photography book fittingly called Wings + Wonder + Water, Birds of the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve. I have run into Joe and Velda (also a wonderful photographer) a few times over the years, but as is typical in Los Angeles people are too busy to connect given the long distances and work demands that dictate our daily lives. But serendipity intervened again, and they invited me to share my journey from complete ignorance to the author, editor, and principal photographer of a book about the urban wildlife reserve that has come to be such an influential and valued part of my world.

This reserve is not easily located, and once discovered it can still be a puzzle to navigate. A mix of re-created, natural ecosystems with roots reaching deep into what was long an urban wasteland, the 225-acre refuge offers a home to over 200 species of birds. The heart of the reserve is an 11-acre wildlife lake, safeguarding the winged occupants of a 1-acre island like a trusty moat. Lounging pods of American White Pelicans often carpet the island like shifting drifts of snow, peppered by a generous scattering of blue-black Doublecrested Cormorants - buddies that nest in the craggy Freemont cottonwoods towering overhead. Peculiar varieties of fish (often spied momentarily airborne) cruise the shallow lake, and rabbits, squirrels, a random coyote or two, and other field and tree-dwellers populate the riparian, prairie, and forested acres that have been dedicated to them.

You might say this is not so unusual for a wildlife preserve. I would agree, until you seeand experience - precisely where it is. The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve is wedged into a narrow, noisy network of scrappy, cracked surface streets and two of the busiest freeways on the planet, the 405 and the 101 in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. It is a highly unlikely site to say the least, but as it turns out it’s also an appropriate and most fortuitous one.

To the point. Los Angeles is an arid land, prone to cycles of years-long severe drought. In 1990 when the wildlife lake was completed (see online resources for a detailed history of the Reserve), it was a dry year, but the new 11-acre, 5-foot-deep lake was filled with potable tap water. And not just once, but twice. This was by no means a popular or sustainable practice. But, right next to the Reserve, ready and waiting, was an already-complete wastewater treatment plant, the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, in full operation since 1985. At that time the idea of using treated wastewater was tainted by a toilet-to-table stigma, and the public was hard to convince that the water had any safe use. But for a wildlife lake - why not? On November 5th , 1991, the lake was officially dedicated and filled with the clean, treated wastewater piped in from next door, and since that day it has been supplied with a continuous flow of plentiful reclaimed water, ensuring the Reserve and the wildlife it supports a convenient and sustainable lifeline into the future. Win, win, win.

What draws photographers to this unexpected and little-known place? For many, it is the extraordinary opportunity to encounter a large and ever-changing menagerie of resident and migratory birds in an accessible urban setting with a generous and visually distinct variety of habitats.

I felt an emphatic need to experience the healing serenity of nature as well as to find an urban sanity during the Pandemic. Fortunately, I now knew where to find those things. Not being an early morning person, it takes something a bit extraordinary to get me up and out to stumble through lumpy fields and underbrush in 42º darkness. If I got my wish and predicted it right, it would be a glowing, foggy darkness. Many of my first mid-winter mornings of the Pandemic came shrouded in clouds of ethereal fog that hovered and shape-shifted above and around the wildlife lake. Those pillowy clouds held flocks of geese, ducks, cormorants, pelicans, and other waterfowl that would alternately be concealed, revealed, and concealed again as the warmth of dawn dissipated the cottony poufs. It is pure heaven for a wildlife/ landscape photographer like me. So began my in-depth forays into the Sepulveda Basin

Wildlife Reserve, and the photographic explorations that would provide the foundation for my future book became secret, compulsive adventures within the confines of a locked-down world.

Photographers are like bugs. We are so mesmerized by and attracted to light that many of us will bellycrawl through mud and pond scum or dangle from the most precarious pitches to nail our perfect shot. What we photograph and when we do it is determined by the time of day, the quality of light, and how to capture it. For those reasons, I have spent little if any time at the Reserve during mid-day. Other photographers, however, have made incredible images there during the peak of day - which brought me around to the decision to invite five other photographers to contribute their unique work to the book.

Wings + Wonder + Water is shaped and guided by the visual teamwork of a group of nature and wildlife photographers that have, independently, spent countless hours exploring and documenting the birds of the Reserve. I describe this vibrant collaboration in a section of the book, “Through the eyes of six.” The seamless blend of our unique visual voices and interpretations gives a comprehensive richness to the book that I would not have achieved on my own. While I have a solid body of work, it became clear early on that to do justice to my purpose – of sharing not only exquisite urban bird life, but to translate character, emotion, relatable behavior, and uniqueness to the pages of a book – would be most successful through a collaborative effort. This has enriched the book beyond my hopes and expectations, and the alliance delivered a trove of gifts to me personally through expanded opportunities and wonderful new friendships.

Six photographers will each have different shooting styles, personal processes and preferences, and be fascinated and inspired by different behavior and conditions. Some of us are Canon shooters, one shoots Nikon, and another uses Fuji. The Fuji xt2 and xt5 are completely silent cameras - fantastic for wildlife (as well as mandatory on sound stages). The focusing features of the Canon R5 that Melissa Teller and I use make it arguably the best camera there is for wildlife and bird photography, but a few new Nikon models use basically the same technology. A couple of us prefer the lens to be as low to the ground as physically possible. One favors a tall monopod for speed and stability with a long lens, while another uses a widespread, extended tripod for long waits shooting straight up into trees. I very often go for backlight although if precise detail and rich, accurate color is the goal, then backlight is probably not the right choice. In wider landscape shots I use slower shutter speeds for softness and blurred action, but I also shoot with a minimum speed of 1/1000 second to freeze action. It all depends on what you’re looking for.

Long lenses are a necessity and the wider the aperture the better for a soft background and isolating the subject from a tangle of leaves and twiggy branches. A wide aperture also facilitates the pre-dawn and post-sunset shots that a tighter aperture can’t manage without a very high ISO and more noise. But - now there is the Topaz Labs photo enhancement software suite that can redeem images that before would have been a total loss. With that and other AI technology come ethical and aesthetic considerations best left to individual exploration.

The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve is a living case study for a wildlife habitat created in urban environments. Encouraging more of them is an aspiration for the book. Its unique urban location and immediate access to a constant source of reclaimed water makes the Reserve unusual. But, as I discovered through doing research for the book, there are numerous urban wildlife reserves, some more “formal” than others, that have evolved around or, even better, have been intentionally created in partnership with urban waste- and stormwater-treatment facilities.

A few examples include the San Joaquin Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary in Orange County,

CA; theArcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary in Arcata, CA; Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson, AZ; and an exciting and currentlyunder-construction example, the LB MUST (Long Beach Municipal Urban Stormwater Treatment Project) in Long Beach, CA. This facility is particularly inspiring because the city government had the wisdom to invite residents and local businesses to become true stakeholders in the project. This rare and brilliant act of foresight fostered complete community engagement, a very powerful support network, and participatory enthusiasm for the facility and the recreated brackish wetlands that are an integral feature of the treatment facility. As a natural wetland and recreational/educational environment, LB Must will eventually be linked by foot and bike paths into the connected system of city parks as part of the 2022 Strategic Plan for Long Beach Parks, Recreation and Marine.

As humanity reawakens to the critical need to support native and migratory birdlife (and all wildlife) in our urban environments, the local opportunities to photograph extraordinary species will hopefully increase. Consideration and ethical practices when photographers take advantage of these opportunities are crucial to the safety and well-being of the wildlife. A topic that merits its own discussion is drone photography. Much has been learned about the world and how to further global conservation efforts by using drones. On the other hand, much devastation has come to bird populations through the careless and ignorant use of drones. Education, awareness, regulation, and enforcement are essential.

As we hurtle through time and see previously assumed boundaries vaporized by the astounding speed of technological progress, it’s imperative to stay rooted in our humanity and our awareness of the much slower pace of the natural world. The screaming technology that allows us to make more and more “impossible” photographs needs to be balanced by keeping ourselves soul-tethered to the ecology and environmental ethics that can sustainably and compassionately guide us into the future of documenting our exquisite, evolving world.

Links

LB MUST Project

Audubon Ethics Guide

State of the Birds 2022

Wings + Wonder + Water Kickstarter

In Your Own Backyard eBook

About the photographers, excerpted from Wings + Wonder + Water

Andy House is drawn to the athletic, muscular qualities of birds in flight, as seen in the bold action and dynamism of his shots. Conversely, Taly Glez is a master of bird portraiture; the dream-like quality of his images conveys the elegance and poise of birds in moments of stillness and silence.

The fleeting and fascinating behavior Melissa Teller documents through endless hours in the field result in one-of-a-kind images any wildlife photographer would envy. Nurit Katz’s delicate details reveal a great fondness for her subjects and attest to her keen powers of observation and calm demeanor—both necessary to witness and capture her subject’s relaxed, natural behavior. Bonnie Blake’s misty landscapes and voyeuristic peeks through tangled vines and lush greenery distill the moods and tones of moments at the Reserve, delivering a graceful and cinematic ambiance to the book.

As for my own work at the Reserve, I am most enchanted with foggy mornings, being able to capture the subtleties of life stirring at dawn, and the quickening pace of activity as the sun rises. I am utterly in awe of the perfection in the smallest physical details of the birds and have at times been humbled to tears by their obvious intelligence, compassion, and truly individual personalities.