Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Watching osprey hunt and catch fish in the rivers and lakes around Eugene could be a full-time occupation. They soar, they hover, they dive. When they rise up out of the water with a fish in their talons, I catch my breath. The sheer power in their wing strokes as they get airborne is a stop-and-stare moment. That’s what amazing nature photographer Norman Goo captures in the photo above. The Eugene photographer’s bird pictures give such a sense of the lives and personalities of his subjects. I’m smitten with his work and when I see his latest images on Facebook, I stop scrolling and sit with the picture. Last year, with his permission, I used one of his kingfisher images as a guide for an embroidery project.

In January I started a second project based on the osprey. It’s been a real challenge to finish. The technique — needle painting, also known as silk shading — is deceptively simple, just one stitch that’s known as the short and long stitch. I finished the osprey with fish this week. I learned so much doing it and feel like this project deserves to be done again employing what I learned the first time around. Will I? Maybe. But Norman Goo has recently captured some heart-stopping pictures of green herons, so …

Top photo by Norman Goo