US Beyond Albemarle Birds

At the beginning

At the beginning

In the 1970s into the 1980s, I studied the ecology and behavior of migratory shorebirds on the North Slope of Alaska, coastal California, central and southern Argentina, coastal Peru and Chile. In the mid 1980s I added Delaware Bay, particularly the interaction of migratory shorebirds and horseshoe crabs. These four images are some of my best work during those years. Each was a cover photograph on the National Audubon Society's American Birds magazine (no longer published). Clockwise from upper left: Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Atqasuk AK), Pectoral Sandpiper (Barrow AK), Red-legged Kittiwake (Pribilof Islands AK) and Steller's Eider (Barrow AK).

I stopped serious photography when in 1990 I became director of the W. Alton Jones Foundation in Charlottesville VA and began to shift my scientific efforts toward understanding endocrine disruption, a scientific field I helped establish and grow.

Those early years of photography had taught me, erroneously, that you had to be in distant places to do serious photography. Then late one winter afternoon in 2006 I noticed the beauty of waning sunlight on a White-throated Sparrow in my backyard near White Hall, VA. I decided to focus locally, emphasizing light and the character of the birds in Albemarle County. I became inspired by Georgia O'Keefe, who brought the beauty of intimate details of flowers to people who ordinarily would never look twice. That is what I have tried to do with birds ever since, using patience, stealth and guile to photograph the intimate details of bird lives you wouldn't otherwise see.

Here is a link to my photographs from Albemarle County, VA, where I live. https://bit.ly/AlbemarleBS The current collection https://bit.ly/USbirdscapes is from places in the US outside of Albemarle. I started here because my photographic adventure started there. And here is a link to photographs from places outside the US where I have visited, mostly on speaking assignments about endocrine disruption but where/when I'd brought my cameras. https://bit.ly/BirdScapesInt Lastly, I compiled some of my best photographs of birds on the shore (not just shorebirds) from all over. https://bit.ly/BirdsScapeOnShore

Enjoy. I would love to hear from you jpm@ehn.org.

Pete Myers
White Hall VA

Buffbreasted SandpiperPectoral SandpiperRedlegged KittiwakeSteller's Eider