Karen's Best Photos of 2019

Listening to the news as 2019 dipped towards the horizon we were inundated with the “best ofs.”  The best songs, the best cat videos, the best political blunders — if someone could think of a category, it had a best list.  If I really want to dive into the subject, I could emerge with a list of best excuses for not keeping up with our blog during the past year.  The problem is, it would get rather repetitious.  That’s the area that reigns at the top of the list where I excel at recycling.

But now it’s our turn to join the parade.  Karen has taken a bunch of thousands of photos Since January 1st, 2019 and only deleted a bunch of hundreds.  Of these, we have many hundreds of favorites.  The challenge for our last blog of the year is Karen’s best photos of 2019 in 10 images.  Now, in reviewing the preliminary selection of 137 photos all deserving top prize, perhaps we should add two words to the description:  Some of.  And we’ve upped the ante to 12 plus added one of my own — of my favorite photographer.

Happy New Year.  Can’t wait to see her photo contributions for 2020.

Karen snapped this image of a pink (humpback) salmon trying to navigate a rapids during extremely low water this past August.  Obviously it was checking for any rocks that might be in the way up ahead.

2019 marked the first year Karen encountered common yellowthroats and then it seemed they seemed to be (as their name suggests) common.

Speaking of common, a seemingly ubiquitous bird, the song sparrow has become one of Karen's favorites with more than 12 images all deserving top honors in her best of list.

Karen also had enough intertidal images to more than fill most photographers best of list, but she picked this one because if you look closely there is a barnacle to the left of the blue mussels that has it's feet out.  I mean, look really closely.  I tended to notice the pattern of the mussels.

Another category with which she could have stuffed the ballot bot is trumpeter swans like these two beauties coming in for a landing in Washington's Skagit River Valley.  Oh, for another week there because...

The swans were in the minority those early November days, where maybe 40 to 50 thousand snow geese kind of captured ones attention, especially when they all took off and flew directly overhead.  Oh my, I just lowered my camera that day and stared in awe.

I primed Karen with verbal images of how much she would enjoy a drive over Lolo Pass as she crossed the border from Montana into Idaho.  So, it rained.  One thing about Karen, she can find a good photo subject under the most unappealing circumstances.

Let's see, have I shown any song sparrow images yet?  

Or snow geese freshly arrived from the Arctic, perhaps Siberia or Alaska.

The reason Karen was where this humpback whale was diving is because she was off to look for rocks on a favorite beach.  That's Alaska for you.

Two probably common merganser chicks -- such simplistic beauty -- unless you're a juvenile salmonid.

What's wrong with this image?  The white-breasted nuthatch photographed in Iowa is right-side up.  They always seem to be upside down, "hopping" down a tree trunk, but, not this time. 

That completes Karen's top 10 list for 2019.  We want to leave you wanting more, not less.

Happy New Year.

Oh, by the way, here are two bonus shots, one of the photographer and one of the editor.

The photographer and a fan club in Viola, Idaho.

The editor being investigated.