Meet Katrina Plummer, a devoted Worldwide Chicken Rescue volunteer for the previous 9 years and an exceptionally proficient photographer. Katrina’s pictures of waterbird sufferers in care at our Southern California wildlife heart have graced our social media numerous instances. And we’re thrilled to characteristic her work in our 2025 calendar.
Katrina has gained photograph contests by means of the years and her first was as a youngster, with a photograph of Nice Blue Heron on the water with a rainbow behind it, taken at Myakka River State Park in Florida. Only in the near past, she gained for a picture of a trio of Nice Horned Owlets on the 2024 Arroyos and Foothills Conservancy Picture Contest.
She was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida and at 21 she moved to California the place she resides in Redondo Seaside. Katrina’s different curiosity is volunteering on the Aquarium of the Pacific in Lengthy Seaside, CA. For the previous seven years she has been a photographer and researcher of their Sea Turtle Monitoring Picture ID program. She helps doc with pictures of sea turtles swimming up within the San Gabriel River. Every sea turtle has a special sample on their heads and thru a particular photograph program, the pictures are scanned to trace the turtles.
For 20 years, Katrina has been working her personal pet-sitting/dog-walking enterprise. She spends any additional time doing wildlife pictures – together with touring to Alaska to the well-known spot for bears, Katmai Nationwide Park (Brooks Falls), the place she’s seen a really giant group of bears searching salmon proper in entrance of her, and Yellowstone Nationwide Park for the abundance of wildlife there.
Query: What’s your background and the way did you get began in pictures?
Reply: I acquired began in pictures when my mother’s buddy gave me my first SLR digital camera. By means of the years I photographed varied topics, however as soon as I traveled to Alaska in 2019, my focus has been simply wildlife. I primarily went there as a result of I so badly needed to see a moose in individual, which was unimaginable, however there was additionally a lot lovely wildlife to take pleasure in. Later I used to be additional impressed once I went on a subject journey to Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve led by JD Bergeron, CEO of Chicken Rescue. He identified so many birds I by no means even knew about earlier than.
Q: You’ve so many wonderful hen pictures, what are a few of your favourite hen species to seize photographically?
A: I’m repeatedly amazed at what number of birds I see for the primary time – so I don’t significantly have a favourite. I’m attempting to watch as many hen species as I can. Nevertheless I do have a passion for the birds we take care of at Chicken Rescue as a result of I like to see them thriving within the wild. I additionally love photographing our hen releases, particularly the pelicans, as a result of I really feel they at all times look again at you earlier than they go, as if to say “thanks” for serving to.
Q: The picture of the American White Pelican from Bolsa Chica in Orange County is beautiful. Inform us extra about this {photograph} and the way you took it?
A: I like going to Bolsa Chica at dawn as a result of the birds have simply began foraging, the water is commonly nonetheless, and the golden gentle is shining on them. I captured the White Pelican at dawn (see featured photograph). The photograph reveals how the morning gentle may be lovely radiating on the hen or making a silhouette of the hen.
Q: You’ve been a volunteer for fairly a while at Chicken Rescue, how did you uncover our work with waterbirds, and the way has that influenced your ardour for pictures?
A: I heard by means of a buddy how nice Chicken Rescue was and determined to volunteer. I really feel so privileged to have the ability to take care of the birds, see them get well, and launch them again to their dwelling. It has positively impressed my pictures assembly so many hen species at Chicken Rescue, having fun with their personalities, and seeing their magnificence up shut. I like to seize their serenity when they’re out within the wild with my pictures. I take pleasure in simply sitting quietly and observing them as nicely.
Q: What are a number of the challenges you face in your hen and nature pictures on the whole?
A: The 2 greatest challenges to wildlife pictures are having persistence and perseverance. For a number of months I went to a birding spot about 10 instances to see a hen I so badly needed to see for the primary time. Simply this week, I used to be there standing on the path, and I used to be so discouraged and I believed, “How am I ever going to see this hen?” Then like magic, the hen – a Inexperienced-Tailed Towhee – got here hopping out of the bushes and hopped throughout me, it acquired inside 5 ft! It was such a thrill to lastly see it and spend quiet time with it.
Q: We all know nice pictures is extra than simply huge identify model gear. However that being mentioned, what gear and/or lens may you not stay with out and why?
A: I couldn’t stay with out my 150 mm-600 mm lens, particularly to seize little music birds!
Q: If you happen to may give starting wildlife photographers only one (or two) bit of recommendation, what wouldn’t it be?
A: The recommendation I might give to starting photographers is that it takes dedication and being passionate together with your craft. You additionally should be courageous and at all times respect the wildlife, not be a menace to them. I discover it arduous to go birding in a forest in Alaska since you should be “bear conscious” and maintain your eyes stage or low to verify a bear will not be strolling in direction of you or sleeping within the bushes. I’ve run into bears on trails.
Additionally in non-dangerous wildlife areas, I sit on the bottom quietly and infrequently birds will land by me as a result of I’m being peaceable.
Q: What hen photograph initiatives are you engaged on sooner or later?
A: The hen challenge that I’m at the moment engaged on is thru iNaturalist. I doc with my pictures the totally different species of birds and different wildlife that I’m discovering. I’ve been doing this since 2019 and to date have discovered 425 totally different species of wildlife. You’ll find my efforts beneath “rabbitlady101” by means of iNaturalist.
Q: Who’re a few of your favourite photographers?
A: Don’t have any favourite photographers I’m following. I’ve even have had unhealthy experiences final yr from posting what wildlife I discovered. Different photographers would insist on me telling them the situation, after which they’d go there and be too aggressive to get the shot and scare the wildlife off. Additionally, I might go to recognized areas with teams of photographers, and they’d block the wildlife (foxes) from going by and searching as a result of they have been attempting to get pictures.
Q: How has working round and sharing your love of wildlife enhanced your life?
A: Working round wildlife and sharing my love of wildlife has enormously enhanced my life as a result of I get to expertise having fun with the fantastic thing about our Chicken Rescue sufferers up-close and get to see the identical wildlife or others thriving of their surroundings, then capturing it.
Q: Please share your major internet portfolio URL and/or Fb web page:
A: Right here’s my Instagram feed. You additionally see, one among my sea turtle analysis pictures, my owl photograph I simply gained the photograph contest with, and some bear pictures from Alaska, simply because I talked about these topics and needed to share the pictures with you.
