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January 24, 2002 - Back through the lens of timeThe Suffolk Times • January 24, 2002 Back through the lens of time Times /Review photo by Paul Stoutenburgh This ring - billed gull is often confused with our common herring gull. It looks quite similar but is a bit smaller. Look for the dark ring around its bill. They don't nest locally like our other gulls do, but nest inland on freshwater lakes. How MANY OF YOU have boxes of old pictures or perhaps trays of Koda- chrome slides tucked away on the shelves of your closets or in your attic, or maybe you just have a box of things that you keep telling yourself, Focus "Someday I'll get around to weed- ON ing them out and putting them in NATURE order "? Well, by Paul that's just what Stoutenburgh Barbara and I decided to do the other day with our trasys and trays of slides When I first started taking Koda- chrome color slides in the '40s, the speed of the film was only 10, which meant my picture- taking was limited to subjects in bright light. Today the speeds of color film go up to 400, and there are even films with ratings of 1,000. Nevertheless I worked at pho- tographing the world around me with my Kodak 35 camera and had fair suc- cess and, believe it or not, the colors in those early slides are still as true today as the day they were taken. It's quite remarkable. I AS we worked through those old slides, the thought came to me that it might be interesting to look back at some of'those adventures in photogra- phy. So, let's start when I went back to college with three young kids and a lovely wife in the late '50s. In those days it was impossible to find housing for a family that size so we bought a trailer and lived in a trailer park. It was in upstate New York at Oswego, right on Lake Ontario, one of the snow capitals of the world. Once it snowed so hard that when we looked out of our trailer window, there were five feet of snow. The only things you could see in the parking lot were the antennas of cars and slight humps in the snow where the cars were. It was one of those record snows that para- lyzed the whole country for weeks. The only way to get groceries and cans of heating fuel filled was to walk down the middle of what was once a road. It was packed solid from people walking back and forth on it. What a mess when it started to melt in the spring. In downtown Oswego you soul only walk in the street. To go to a store you had to go through a hole in the snow bank to the store entrance. The store owners put their signs out in the snow so you could find them. It was unbelievable. But back to my Kodachrome adven- tures concerning wildlife and summer school in Oswego. I found out that the ring - billed gull nested on a place called "Long Island" (can you believe it ?) . in Lake Oneida. Thi gull is found locall throughout our area except for nesting time and so I wanted to photograph it at its nest while I was spend- ing time nearby in school. So the first good Saturday in June we packed lunch, piled into our old Pontiac and headed for the lake. We rented a boat that got us out to the island where the gulls were nesting. Barbara stayed with the boa and kids down the beach while I set u a blind to photograph from. All went well and I used up. one whole roll of film just on those gulls, quite extrava- gant in those tight days of college. The ring - billed gull is smaller than our herring gull but fairly similar in gulls because they have a dark ring marking around their bill that is easily recognized. They only nest on fresh- water inland lakes. The gulls that do nest locally are the common herring gull and the black - backed gull. They nest by the hun- dreds on Gardiners Island, Plum Island, Fishers Island and the spoil islands of the Great South I remember it was terri- bly hot that day and how I did sweat in that blind. Often I'd have to come out W cool off back at the oat, where Barbara was atching the kids on the beach. I think we had a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with us but we all sur- vived and I was able to get a good record of the ring - billed gull on its nest- ing grounds. To this day those pictures are some of the best I've ever taken. different kind of tern Everyone knows what terns are. `.,.the colors in those early slides are still as true today as the day they were taken.' They are the small white birds that dive for fish in our local waters. They nest locally on deserted beach es. Then there is the black tern, which is rarer here but occasionally is seen along the south side. It, too, nests inland on small bodies of freshwater. While up at Oswego I traced the black tern to one of its nesting areas in a swamp just west of the college. Once again the fami, traveled with me. They stayed ashore, finding things to do under Barbara's watchful eyes, while I waded out to photograph. And like all terns, they'd dive -bomb you as you approached their nest. Just before they reached you, they'd swoop up screaming, often dropping their little tokens of waste on your hat, back or shoulders. At one particular nest I needed help holding back a branch that was in the way of my photographing. The water was about knee deep, so I called to Barbara to come hold the branch so I could finish the shot. Their nests, by the way, are a collec- tion of floating debris that the terns build on. I can remember Barbara asking on her way out, "Are there any snakes in here ?" I said, "Of course not!" She no sooner got halfway out to where I was standing when a big old water snake went swimming by. Needless to say, she didn't hold the branch for me that day! The bottom line was I did get good pictures of the black terns but the film I was using wasn't Kodachrome and now the color has faded, much to my disappointment. Today the swamp has been filled to accommodate an ever - expanding campus. A typical example of loss of habitat. Most of my photographing adven- tures included the.family. Barbara somehow managed to keep the kids busy while I photographed and, if the truth be known, very few outings would have proved successful with- out her patience and understandine.